Quantitative failure metric for gravity dams

Summary Quantitative failure monitoring is a critical tool for safety assessment of concrete dams. This includes damage occurrence, intensity, location, number, size, and propagation pattern. Such an assessment is essential for a quantifiable prioritization of repair and will thus reduce overall cost and improve safety. This paper will address this timely topic through the nonlinear transient analysis of a dam and failure will be ascertained through a multi‐scale damage index. A damage‐plastic model for mass concrete is used, Drucker‐Prager elasto‐plastic one for the foundation, and infinite elements are used for far‐field boundaries. Water‐dam interaction is accounted for through fluid finite elements. It is determined that the proposed damage indices can indeed provide a quantitative metric for the degree of failure in gravity dams in terms of the input dynamic motion. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.