Study on Crack Mechanism for Concrete Bedding Cushion on Rock: Fid-Bau Portal

Study on Crack Mechanism for Concrete Bedding Cushion on Rock

Liu, Min Zhi / Qiang, Sheng / Zhu, Zhen Yang

Bedding cushion cracking in concrete dam is widespread, and has not been completely prevented [1,2]. There are many cracking causes of bedding cushion, including construction difficulty and structure requirements for concrete dam. Based on the method of FEM simulative calculation of temperature and stress fields of mass concrete using water cooling pipes, this paper makes relatively in-depth study on crack mechanism for concrete bedding cushion on rock. It is revealed that all three factors of uneven thickness of bedding cushion, thickness of new dam concrete placed on cushion after off period and foundation gallery upon bedding cushion have great influence on the tensile stress of bedding cushion and should be paid special attention during construction. The calculation results show that the tensile stress of thinner concrete cushion layer is much greater than the thicker one, and the thinner upon new concrete will also make greater tensile stress in cushion. As a result, both the thinner cushion layer and the cushion with thinner new concrete on it would have a bigger chance to crack than others. The mechanism is used to explain reasonably a dam crack in construction. Then some cracking prevention measures, which should have reference value for the construction of bedding cushion, are put forward in this paper.