In this paper, case study on outlet cracking is first conducted for the Goupitan and Xiaowan arch dams. A nonlinear FEM method is then implemented to study effects of the outlets on integral stability of the Xiluodu arch dam under two loading conditions, i.e., normal loading and overloading conditions. On the basis of the case study and the numerical modelling, the outlet cracking mechanism, ri...

The design of arch dams usually involves a prolonged process of successive trial and error redefinitions. The current computer technology however enables to automate this task, in order to achieve the most economic solution overall. In the paper, the implemented optimization method of the geometry of concrete arch dams is presented as well as case studies of its application in the design of two...

An efficient methodology is proposed to find optimal shape of arch dams on the basis of constrained natural frequencies. The optimization is carried out by virtual sub population (VSP) evolutionary algorithm employing real values of design variables. In order to reduce the computational cost of the optimization process, the arch dam natural frequencies are predicted by properly trained back pro...

In this paper, optimal design of arch dams is performed under frequency limitations. Colliding Bodies Optimization (CBO), a recently developed meta-heuristic optimization method, which has been successfully applied to several structural problems, is revised and utilized for finding the best feasible shape of arch dams. The formulation of CBO is derived from one-dimensional collisions between bo...

the main aim of this paper is to find the optimum shape of arch dams subjected to multiple natural frequency constraints by using an efficient methodology. the optimization is carried out by charged system search algorithm and its enhanced version. computing the natural frequencies by finite element analysis (fea) during the optimization process is time consuming. in order to reduce the computa...

optimization techniques can be efficiently utilized to achieve an optimal shape for arch dams. this optimal design can consider the conditions of the economy and safety simultaneously. the main aim is to present an applicable and practical model and suggest an algorithm for optimization of concrete arch dams to enhance their seismic performance. to achieve this purpose, a preliminary optimizati...