Impact of solar radiation on the uncoupled transient thermo-structural response of an arch dam

In this paper, the impact of solar radiation on the uncoupled transient thermo-structural behavior of an arch dam was investigated under the earthquake loading. Temperature distribution within the dam body was determined by solving the governing dierential equations taking into account the water and air temperature and the solar radiation. Finite element model of the dam-reservoir-foundation system including joint nonlinearity was excited using three-component ground motion. Results of the thermal transient analysis with and without solar radiation eects were used as an initial boundary condition for the seismic analysis. Results showed that considering solar radiation leads to non-uniform temperature distribution on the exposed faces and increasing the tensile stresses within the dam body.