Design and Construction of Buttress Dams
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| An example of a typical slab and buttress dam. (USBR, 2019) |
Buttress dams were constructed mainly in early 20th century when labor was cheap and materials were expensive. Buttress dams reduced the concrete required to build a typical gravity dam by as much as 60 percent. For stability, these relatively light structures required upstream sloping water barriers resulting in the water force acting downward. These structures were designed to carry load in stream direction, but typically did not consider seismic or other loadings in the cross-stream direction and are therefore vulnerable to these conditions.[1]
Finite element analyses of an entire buttress structure is needed to understand the structural response. Cracking or yielding of reinforced concrete members does not necessarily equal dam failure for buttress-type structures.[1]
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Revision ID: 4614
Revision Date: 11/28/2022