Simulating nonlinear behavior of CMD material in seismic analysis of concrete gravity dam

In recent years, a new type of dams namely CMD, has attracted so much attention. Different amounts of cement cause a type of behavior that be somewhere between those of embankment dams and conventional concrete dams. This behavior is not perfectly clarified and its analysis, especially under dynamical loading and in nonlinear region of the material, remains unclear. In this paper, Tobetsu dam has been choose for a case study and, by exerting seismic acceleration with different levels of maximum acceleration and using plasticity approach on concrete destruction in Abacus software, put to nonlinear dynamical analysis. The results show that in these dams cracking starts from the heels, and by increasing the exerted seismic acceleration most of the cracks take place at the dam's lowest third from foundation level on its upper- and lower-hand surface. This dam, due to high plasticity of its material, does not show fragile behavior and as exerted seismic acceleration increases, the dam's behavior remains soft so it does not suffer sudden wreck and does not lose the ability to preserve its own stability.