SEISMIC ANALYSIS OF AN AMBURSON DAM

The Nova Scotia Amburson-type Dam studied by NOEL has a maximum height of 102 ft with an overall length of 470 ft. The dam consists of 14 independent buttresses constructed in vertically discontinuous sections (unreinforced diagonal control joints) relying on water pressure and gravity loads to transfer shear through friction at the joints. Face slabs span horizontally to the buttresses transferrring the water load. A FEED level spectral analysis of the dam was conduced to evaluate the dam resistance when subjected to cross-valley seismic excitation. The analysis was conducted in accordance to CDA (2013) for annual exceedance probabilities of 1/5,000 and 1/10,000. The hydrodynamic effect of the water pressure was considered in the analysis. Sub FE models of the spillway buttresses were developed using LS-DYNA and parametric studies were conducted to bound the response of the dam under variable restraint conditions.