Pornthap Pramthawee, Pornkasem Jongpradist, and Warat Kongkitkul

pp. 325 - 334

Abstract

With the continual increase in the height of concrete face rockfill dams constructed during this decade, the hyperbolic
elastic model conventionally used in the numerical analyses of lower-height rockfill dams in the past practice becomes insufficient to reproduce the key responses of rockfills of high dam constructions and impoundments. This research aims at
evaluating the ability of the elasto-plastic with isotropic hardening (HS) model for simulating more realistic responses in the
analysis of high concrete face rockfill dams. The HS model and, for comparison, the hyperbolic elastic model are numerically
implemented into a finite element program ABAQUS through the user subroutine to analyze the behaviors of rockfills under
construction of a 182 m high dam. To obtain the reliable parameters in the analyses, the laboratory triaxial testing data of
rockfills from actual construction are adopted and the calibration by model simulation is also conducted. The analysis results
from both models are compared to the high-quality instrumented data of dam construction. It is proven that by using the HS
constitutive model with the appropriately calibrated model parameters, the response of the rockfills under dam construction
condition can be more accurately simulated.