Abnormality monitoring model of cracks in concrete dams

The abnormality monitoring model (AMM) of cracks in concrete dams is established through integrating safety monitoring theories with abnormality diagnosis methods of cracks. In addition, emphasis is placed on the influence of crack depth on crack mouth opening displacement (CMOD). A linear hypothesis is proposed for the propagation process of cracks in concrete based on the fictitious crack model (FCM). Abnormality points are detected through testing methods of dynamical structure mutation and statistical model mutation. The solution of AMM is transformed into a global optimization problem, which is solved by the particle swarm optimization (PSO) method. Therefore, the AMM of cracks in concrete dams is established and solved completely. In the end of the paper, the proposed model is validated by a typical crack at the 105 m elevation of a concrete gravity arch dam.