STRESS CONCENTRATION AT CORNERS OF GRAVITY DAM AND DESIGN OF FILLETS

Abstract

High stresses concentrate at the heel and toe of a gravity dam structure. These stresses sometimes can be so high as to create plastic strain conditions at the corners. The problem can be tackled by providing fillets at the corners. Use of fillets at the junction of the dam and foundation which was not a very COMM practice in the past has come in vogue in all dam building activities these days. A, probe into the problem has been made and previous work has been reviewed in the dissertation. Studies are made on sharp corners, straightscircular and elliptical fillets of varying size. The studies are con-ducted on photoelastic bench and on IBM 1620 computer by finite element method. The pbotoelastic studies technique and the finite element method have been reviewed. The studies reveal the usefulness of the elliptical fillet for the heel and straight fillet for the toebut from practical considerations and ease in construction, straight fillets may be adopted. The relationship for stress and the distance from the corner for different fillets has been presented in the form of graphs.