THERMAL DISPLACEMENTS OF CONCRETE DAMS: CLARIFICATION AND IMPROVEMENT OF STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

In order to analyse measured displacements of concretedams, physico-statistical models such as multi-linearregression are commonly employed. The HSTT model(Hydrostatic, Seasonal, Time, Thermal) developed by EDFis a physico-statistical model to assess the reversible influ-ences (hydrostatic and thermal) and to subtract them tomeasurements in order to highlight the irreversiblebehaviour of the dam. In this contribution, both thehypotheses and the theoretical limits of the HSTT modelare clearly pointed out. Moreover, using finite element sim-ulations, the HSTT capability to capture the different ther-mal phenomena is evaluated. Finally, based on theidentified limits, a new model is proposed in order toimprove the modelling of the thermal effect. The perfor-mance of this new model is evaluated on a heuristic case(finite element simulation). The new method enables toreduce significantly the residual dispersion.