Rock Stability Analysis and its Application in Large Dam Construction

Professor Zhou, Wei Yuan, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

In recent years in China a lot of dams, especially large dams have been constructed and are under construction. Rock engineering research has been faced with rock stability problems in dam construction. Below are several important problems that were encountered:

• Uncertainty in which stability models to use in dam evaluation
• Difficulty in conducting rupture analysis of rock engineering, such as high slopes and dam foundations
• Difficulty in conducting fracture analysis of dams

Elasto-plastic fracture analysis with Damage Mechanics Model and Multipotential Surfaces Failure Model, and Localisation and Meshless Analysis were conducted. The most famous dams such as the Three Gorges Projects and Ertan Arch Dam were analysed by these methods. The results from the analyses as well as physical model tests were presented. These results coincided very well with prototype investigations

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