Structural Stability of Concrete Gravity Dams Strengthened by Rockfill Buttressing: Hydrostatic Load

Abstract

Rockfill buttressing is often considered to strengthen existing gravity dams that have inadequate stability to resist the estimated hydrostatic and seismic loads. Various simplified methods for static stability analyses of composite concrete–rockfill dams, which represent the rockfill as equivalent forces, are discussed. Numerical analyses of composite dams using nonlinear rockfill and interface constitutive models are then considered. Hydrostatic stability analyses of a