Estimation of earthquake-induced crest settlements of earth and rock-fill dams

Settlement of dam crest induced by earthquake is a control factor in aseismic design of earth and rock-fill dam.This paper presents two empirical fitting relationships that were obtained through an analysis on the performance of such dams due to earthquake reported in the publication for 123 case histories and also an analysis on numerical calculations of permanent deformation of 48 dams using an equivalent nodal force concept.The results show that the numerical method is an effective technique of simulating earthquake-induced permanent deformation,while its predictions are higher than those of the reported case histories.This paper concludes that the well-built dams based on the modern design rules can withstand moderate to strong earthquake shaking and that the crest settlement is less than one percent of the dam height.