Elasto-Plastic Seismic Response Analysis of Earth Dams

A simplified and efficient numerical model is developed to perform the phenomenological elasto-plastic seismic response analysis of earth dams. The method is based on a two-dimensional Galerkin formulation of the equations of motion for the dam material, and accounts for the presence of water inside the dam. The soil skeleton nonlinear hysteretic response is modelled using an effective stress multi-yield function elasto-plastic constitutive model. The model is validated using actual transient ground motions as input and the computed responses are compared with the motions recorded at the respective sites. The ability of the model to simulate the occurrence of liquefaction in a dam is also demonstrated