Effect of stratification on hydrodynamic pressures on dams

Summary The effect of stratification of the fluid in the reservoir on hydrodynamic pressures on dams due to horizontal, harmonic ground accelerations has been analyzed. It has been found that both the zeroth-order solution, which corresponds to the constant-density solution, and the first-order solution have two components in the hydrodynamic pressure distribution, an in-phase component and an out-of-phase component which is 90° lagging. The out-of-phase components vanish in the absence of surface waves, and they become dominant when the wave-effect parameter C becomes large. The wave-effect parameter C is defined as 49-1, where g is the gravitational constant, the oscillation frequency and h the height of the fluid in the reservoir. The total horizontal force on a dam due to harmonic ground excitations has also been presented.