FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF SPILLWAY PIERS

Abstract

The Spillway Piers supporting radial gates are the highly stressed members in the water control system in dams. The structural loads due to hydrostatic forces on the gates, torque introduced by the one side gate operation, the anchorage forces and curved crest profile of the spillway make the piers complex structural systems. In addition, it has alSo take care of the impacts generated by the moving loads transferred by the bridge and support the bridge itself. During an earthquake, the spillway piers are also subjected to seismic forces. Existing practice in the design of spillway piers is based on conventional methods, treating the pier as a one dimensional cantilever fixed at its base and accounting for the earthquake forces by pseudostatic approaches. The present day practice of providing large gate dimensions calls for a safe and economic design of spillway piers. A draft. " Criteria for Structural Design of Spillway Piers and Crest ", is also under examination by the Indian Standards Institution. This dissertation presents the Analysis of Spillway Piers using Finite Element Method. Four actual spillways with different gate sizes have been analysed The pier is idealized as a two dimensional plate, fixed along the base and free along the other three' sides. The analysis simulates a plate bending problem