BUCKLING STABILITY ANALYSIS OF HORIZONTAL ARCH RINGS OF HIGH-THIN ARCH DAMS BASED ON ARCH-CANTILEVER METHOD

High arch dams in canyon areas are normally featured with small radiuses and large cross-sections, and the curvature and shearing deformation of high arch dams impose great influence on the critical load. Based on the experience in analyzing high arch dams of large curvature and using the arch-cantilever method, this study re-examined the examples in “Further discussions on the stability of arch dams regarding elastic buckling”. The buckling stability factor was reformulated, and its relationship with the slenderness coefficient of high arch dams was derived. Results show for the middle-upper part of high arch dams, arch rings bear a large portion of loads and are vulnerable to collapse. The influence of curvature and shear deformation is insignificant. On the other hand, for the middle-lower part, the stability condition is relatively better. The influence of curvature and shear deformation is noticeable, and that of shear deformation is greater than that of curvature. It is also noted that a bigger slenderness coefficient is associated with a bigger area of bulking instability of arch rings. A slenderness coefficient of 10 signifies no bulking collapse throughout the dam.