FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF SUPA DAM

Abstract

Design of a gravity dam on weak foundations poses several difficulties to the designers, particularly when major weak-zones exist to a large extent in the heel and toe regions of the dam. Conventional gravity sections can not be safe under such adverse situations, since the heel and toe are the heavily stressed zones in gravity dams. In case, there is no feasibility to adjust the alignment of the dam to avoid these weakzones in the vulnerable regions of heel and toe, it becomes inevitable to resort to unconventional design of gravity dam blocks. The unconventional designs may involve provision of additional structural components such as a plug or a strut to transmit the loads to the comps.ent rock availa-ble adjacent to the weakzones, so that, the weakzone materials are safeguarded from subjecting to the stresses exceeding their safe bearing capacities