NUMERICAL MODELING TO THE DYNAMIC RESPONSE OF MINDALI EARTH DAM

In fact, numerical modeling using finite element method is considered a very powerful tool to investigate the desired behavior of structures in geotechnical engineering. Earth dam are a water retention structures which are normally wide spread in the civil engineering field due to its significant features. The exposure of such structure to an earthquake dictates some un desirable response which must to be within the tolerable limits. The basic objective of this study is to evaluate the seismic response of Mendali dam which is located in Diyala governorate, northeast of Iraq since this area is considered as an active seismic zone. Since the matter of seismic response is still have a considerable lack of information for earth dams as a unique structure, numerical modeling has been done in this study through Geo studio software using a representative section of that dam under consideration. The excited earthquake is Elcentro while three values of peak ground acceleration were used which are 0.2, 0.25 and 0.3 g and the duration time is scaled to 10 seconds. In addition, three nodes are used to represent the dynamic response within the dam body at the top, clay core and at the upstream shell