Page - 1350 - in Book of Full Papers - Symposium Hydro Engineering

BEHAVIOUR OF ASPHALT CONCRETE CORE EMBANKMENT DAMS (ACED) AND SHEAR ZONE DEVELOPMENT Guntram Innerhofer sen.1 Peter Tschernutter2 & Adrian Kainrath2 1Former Head of Civil Engineering Department, Vorarlberger Illwerke AG 2Tschernutter Consulting GmbH, Villach, Austria AUSTRIA 1. INTRODUCTION Asphalt concrete cores as central water barrier provide a cost-effective and highly flexible solution even for small and high embankment dams. The stress and deformation behaviour of such dams is completely different compared to other dam types like surface sealed, homogenous or zoned dams. Worldwide almost 200 asphalt concrete core embankment dams have been built or are under construction in different countries. There are now more than 50 years of successful experience for this dam type. Over the past decades comprehensive material research has been performed and new asphalt concrete placing equipment has been developed. The comparatively thin asphalt concrete core must withstand the induced deformations of the dam shoulders and the water load without cracking or leaking. Even if an asphalt concrete core tolerates high deformations without structural damage, the understanding of the deformation behaviour of ACE dams is of basic importance. This paper presents fundamental aspects on the stress distribution and the deformation behaviour of ACE dams. Therefore, basic theoretical considerations and monitoring data on existing dams are compared with results of numerical analyses. 1350