Volume 32, N. 2, May-August 2009 | PDF(4 downloads)
Abstract
The occurrence of a 5.9 magnitude earthquake, in February 2007, that affected two rockfill dams in Portugal, led to a study presented in this paper about the structural performance of rockfill dams under earthquake influence. Taking into account the world knowledge it can be concluded that the dynamic actions have mainly produced some displacements, and the opening of cracks and fissures of reduced development, particularly in the highest zones of those structures. So, up to now there is not any failure of a rockfill dam related to seismic actions. This paper also presents an expedite method for predicting vertical displacements based on a parameter related with quantification of the dynamic action and with settlements measured on prototypes.
