Effects of Changing Surrounding Conditions on the Thermal Analysis of the Moste Concrete Dam

Abstract

This paper deals with the heat transfer analysis of the 63-year-old and 60-m-high Moste concrete arch-gravity dam, located in Northwest Slovenia. The analysis was performed after a new sophisticated monitoring system had been established, making it possible to perform continuous measurements of the temperatures of the concrete, water, and dam surroundings, i.e., air temperatures and amount of solar insolation. An equation defining nonlinear and nonstationary heat conduction in the case of a two-dimensional space, for a homogeneous isotropic solid whose thermal conductivity is independent of temperature, was solved numerically by means of the finite-element method, taking into account appropriate boundary conditions. The latter involved the effects of changing conditions in the surroundings (i.e., shading, convection, and solar radiation) during the analyzed period of 15 consecutive clear days in the summer. The results show that the measured and calculated temperatures of the concrete at different locations, and at different depths, were in very good agreement.