XFEM analysis of concrete arch dam to assess deformations and propagation of artificial crack due to the combination of earthquake and uplift pressure

In this study, the extended finite element method (XFEM) is further generalized to study the crack propagation in the concrete arch dam. Static and dynamic analysis performed on scaled-down prototype plane concrete arch dam to assess the deformation occurs due to water pressure and moderate earthquake magnitude of 5.8M. The most obvious finding to emerge from this study is that XFEM allows the entire crack to represented independently of the mesh, and so re-meshing is not necessary to model crack growth. The study has also shown that emergence of new cracks in different locations on the dam's body. (paper)