ABSTRACT
The first example, an arch gravity dam, will be presented in great detail, given that a comprehensive study has also been performed on this topic. The buttress dam analysis was included in an ICOLD benchmark study, whose limited scope was still able to expose some key considerations. The arch dam is a special case since it is the only one yet to be analyzed either by the author or by the MERLIN computer model he designed (see Appendix B). Instead, it was analyzed by Prof. Mirzabozorg, who implemented the author’s published constitutive model (Saouma and Perotti, 2006) in finite element code and performed the analysis using an arch dam. The last example will highlight a massive reinforced concrete structure, considered too expensive to replace, while undergoing AAR.
