Seismic Motion Selection Criteria for Dam Design

In recent years, new seismic design methods for earthdam, based on finite element have been used. These methods generally require selection criteria of seismic ground motion to be used for the design. Most standard criteria used are maximum ground acceleration and linear response spectra. These criteria fail to predict seismic dam response due to strong nonlinear soil behavior characterized by large permanent displacement, shear modulus degradation and damping increasing with shear strain deformation variation, increase of water pore pressure and large variation of natural period of dam. A criterion based on the potential destructiveness of earthquake motion is proposed. This criterion can isolate the effect of the maximum ground acceleration, strong motion duration and characteristic frequency of real earthquakes. The criterion have been developed through the design of six dams in Chile; 3 earthdams and 3 large tailing dams and it’s based on the nonlinear behavior of soil