An Innovative Design Philosophy Simplifying Design of Massive Concrete Structures using Finite Element Based Software

Hydro Power Plants mainly consist of large volume of mass concrete to support the heavy electro-mechanical equipments with dynamic excitation, and also to provideenough weight to meet the stability requirements as well as to provide enough space for drainage system and to access to different parts of HPP. Usually in massiveconcrete structures like dams, no reinforcement is used and stability of the structure is preserved using other mechanical mechanism such as increasing the compressionforce via arch shapes or weight. In other cases, reinforcement in the mass concreteare determined using simplified assumptions mainly considering the provisions toprevent cracking during the temperature rise in cement hydration and also crackingresulted from reinforcement bar forces. In this paper an innovative design philosophy is presented which allows exact modeling of the structure using Finite Element andthen designing the reinforcement in mass concrete based on the internal forces in thestructure. In this design philosophy, principal stresses and directions will be determined in concrete elements and then the required reinforcement will be specifiedwherever concrete is in tension.

Keywords:

Hydro Power Plant , Mass Concrete , Design Philosophy , Finite Element , ANSYS , Gotvand