Mir Ahmad Lashteneshae - Associate Professor of Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering , University of Guilan
Morteza Khomami Abadi - MSC Student of Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering , University of Guilan
Rasoul Vahedzadegan - BSC Student of Mechanical Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Bandar Anzali Branch

Water level fluctuation in concrete dams can have a significant effect on stress-strain behavior at different locations in the body of such structures. This effect is more pronounced when the earthquake induced forces are present. Sefidrud dam which is located in the north part of Iran, has suffered from the progressive crack development during the earthquake occurred in 1991 in that region. Creation of the longitudinal crack near the normal water level of the mentioned concrete dam while the reservoir was full has caused the motivation to investigate the effec t of res ervoir water level on crack development in the body of the dam. In this paper, using the data of the Rudbar-Manjil earthquake, the behavior of Sefidrud dam is modelled numerically and the effect of different reservoir water levels on generation and development of crack in the body of the dam is investigated. The relation between the water level and dimension of crack is empirically estimated and verified using the real field measurements indicating a good agreement. Following the dynamical analysis of sefidrud dam, the stress-strain counters are achieved indicating the critical points in the cross section of the concrete dam. Based on these results the location and dimensions of possible cracks are estimated and compared with the measured data available after the mentioned earthquake. The results are encouraging for further development of the proposed model to predict the location and estimate the dimension of progressive cracks in such conditions when the seismic forces due to earthquake exist.

Sefid-Rud dam, Elastoplastic, Dynamic analysis, Reservoir water level, Stress-strain curve, crack