International Journal of Engineering and Technology

This study was conducted to evaluate the seismic performance of weir structures using two different approaches: i) design response spectrum with respect to KBC 2009 in Korea and ii) acceleration of time history (PGA, 0.3011 g) obtained from 1994 Northridge earthquake. This paper provided the simple linear elastic 2D plane strain FE model with the material nonlinearity including soil-foundation-structure based on Gangjeong-Goryeong hydraulic system, located in Daegu Metropolitan City in Southeastern part of Korea. In order to consider the sliding effect between the weir structures and soil structures, linear and nonlinear time history analysis was carried out. Consequently, the maximum principal stress and maximum displacement of the weir body fairly reduced in linear time history analysis when comparing design spectrum method with linear time history analysis. The minimum principal stress significantly increased in linear time history analysis, rather than design spectrum analysis. In addition, based on the sliding effect results, the principal stresses and maximum displacement was notably increased due to the material nonlinearity. It was interesting to find that the weir system subjected to seismic ground motions was sensitive to friction element conditions.