Sharif Digital Repository

Concrete arch dams, because of their special shape as a 3-D huge shell which is fixed from three sides, are very sensitive to temperature and its variation. Therefore, it is required to include the temperature variations and their related thermal stresses and strains in the safety analysis of dams. In this research, the effect of applying the thermal gradients caused by the most critical thermal conditions, on dynamic behavior of concrete arch dams was studied. For this purpose, first a roughly exact 3-D finite element model of Karoon ІV arch dam was prepared by ANSYS program. Then, the temperature distribution through the dam thickness was determined by Stucky-Derron method and in a more... 

One of the major reasons causing cracks in external surfaces of concrete arch dams are thermal loads. Therofore, in order to avoid instabilities due to function of thermal loads in association with hydrostatic and hydrodynamic pressures, a precise evaluation of temperature distribution through dam body is indispensable. In this study, effects of thermal loads mostly on upstream surface of Karun-3 concrete arch dam in Iran were examined using a 3-D finite element method considering water level fluctuations. Also the influence of operatvie boundry conditions in our problem which are water temperature, air temperature and solar radiation was precisely taken into account. Moreover, nonlinear... 

Dams are huge structures in which safety is a very important issue because a failure will result in loss of lives and finance. Several approximate equations for the approximate analysis of arch dams already exist. These equations are usually obtained by considering the behavior of the dam as a shell. Approximate methods are much faster in comparison to the exact methods and give young design engineers who do not have the experience of designing inside view of displacements, stresses and strains. The aim of this project is to compare the results of approximate analysis of arch dams with the results of finite element models and clarify the points of dams in which approximate analysis methods... 

Finding an initial point to start classical optimization methods is privileged to finding an algorithm. It is due to high dependency of final result to selection of initial point, which is independent of type of the algorithm. In engineering optimization where space of problem has several local extremums, this fact has higher effects. In the present study, to overcome this problem in finding optimum shape of concrete arch dams, a two-stage approach is proposed. In the first stage (discrete stage), using the developed stress-constrained topology optimization, an initial optimum shape is obtained. Afterward in the next stage (continuous stage), the optimum shape obtained from previous stage is... 

The dams as one of the most costly and most fundamental infrastructure that human steps to make their, always paid special attention to people in different historical periods. According to the high cost of this structure, optimum design is so important. On other hand stability of structure as main aspects of the design that in the absence of it is threatening the lives of many people in downstream. Therefor the engineers consider two important aspect when they want to design a dam. The first step in designing is determinate the external loads. A designer not only must recognize this loads but also by using the material that he consume in the body of dams reach to a safety structure in During... 

In recent years, machine learning techniques have been available to predict and interpret the structural behavior of dams. The main goal of this research is to predict structural behavior through modeling with data read by accurate instruments of dams. This requires the selection of several machine learning methods such as Random Forests (RF), Boosted Regression Trees (BRT), Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Support Vector Regression (SVR), and Decision Tree Regression (DTR) algorithms. In this research, considering the 24 target variables defined from the detailed instrumentations studied, the behavior of the dam is modeled using selected machine learning models. These precision instruments... 

Karun 4 arch concrete dam with a height of 230 meters is designed and built in one of the most complex natural places. Therefore, monitoring the behavior and evaluating the safety and stability of this dam, both with regard to the height and nature of the dam itself and with regard to its national and international dimensions, is of special importance and sensitivity. This sensitivity is doubled due to some problems and issues encountered in the body of the Karun 4 dam, which of course are considered probable and possible phenomena in arch concrete dams. The Karun 4 Dam construction site is located in the southwest of Iran on the Karun River, immediately upstream of the Karun 3 Dam reservoir...