Creep of Dam Concrete Evaluated from Laboratory and In Situ Tests

Abstract

One of the most important phenomena of the delayed behaviour of mass concrete used in dams is creep, i.e., the increase in deformation over time when subjected to constant stress. Although several studies concerning concrete creep were carried out throughout the last decades in a structural and material level, the physical and chemical phenomena are yet to be fully understood. This paper presents a study on the Alqueva dam’s concrete deformability in which a parameter evaluation was performed using the Baz̆ant and Panula’s basic creep function, based on both in situ and laboratory creep test results. In the first part of the paper, the approach and material properties that better fit the experimental data of a dam’s mass concrete are presented. In the second part, the fitted function for each in situ test was validated using a finite element numerical model that takes into account the time-dependent behaviour, the applied stress and the monitored temperatures.