LAUSR

Though limited, historical evidence has shown that large concrete gravity and arch dams will be subjected to severe cracking and displacements in the case of major earthquakes threatening their ability to retain the reservoir. Seismic safety assessment of concrete dams is still a challenging earthquake engineering problem because it requires the numerical analysis of (1) dam–water and (2) dam–foundation interactions to define internal forces and stresses and (3) the definition of appropriate performance criteria including acceptance of concrete and joints nonlinear behavior (cracking, sliding).