Structural Assessment of Old Masonry Dams

Abstract

Mexico has an important number of masonry dams that were constructed from 17^th century to 19^th century and continue to operate until now. They have never been analyzed and their failure or collapse cause economic and human losses - including the historical value. Additionally, some towns have been established downstream of many dams, increasing the risk of a disaster in case of failure of the dam; therein lies the importance of the structural stability. The selected dam was analyzed by traditional methods, where the resultant of all forces acting on the dam must lie in the third middle of the base and the hypothesis of no tension material is assumed. Sometimes, this approach is too conservative and mostly does not reflect the real structural behavior of the dam. Based on the obtained results by traditional methods, the structural assessment of ancient masonry dams was studied under the rigid body spring model (RBSM), considering non-lineal behavior and was made a parametric study to identify the mechanical properties that have more influence on the structural behavior. Parametric analyses show that the tensile strength of the masonry is the property of greater influence on the structural behavior