Nonuniform earthquake input for arch dam-foundation interaction

Wave scattering and dam-foundation interaction are important aspects of a realistic earthquake analysis of arch dams. In the first part of this paper it is shown how the motion obtained from a two-dimensional scattering analysis can be used as an input for a three-dimensional dam-foundation analysis. In the second part, a method for calculating the scattered motion is explained. The scattered motion is obtained via the two-dimensional dynamic stiffness matrix. The dynamic stiffness matrix for an out-of-plane motion is calculated by the Complementary-Domain Method (CDM). Some examples are presented to verify the method and to show the influence of the scattering of the seismic ground motion. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.