Mixed-mode pressurized fracture at the dam-foundation joint

When fracture occurs in a concrete dam, the crack mouth is typically exposed to water. Very often this phenomenon occurs at the dam-foundation joint and is driven also by the fluid pressure inside the crack. Since the joint is the weakest point in the structure, this evolutionary process determines the load bearing capacity of the dam. In this paper the cracked joint is analyzed through the cohesive model, which takes into account the coupled degradation of normal and tangential strength. Some numerical results are presented which refer to the benchmark problem proposed in 1999 by the International Commission On Large Dams. During the evolutionary process the horizontal dam crest displacement has been found to be a monotonic increasing function of the external load multiplier. As the fictitious process zone moves from the upstream to the downstream edge a transition occurs in the path of crack formation: the initial phase is dominated by the opening displacement, on the contrary afterwards the shear displacement dominates. Therefore, crack initiation does not depend on dilatancy. On the contary the load carrying capacity depends on dilatancy.