Modelling of contraction joint and shear sliding effects on earthquake response of arch dams

In an arch dam, adjacent monoliths separated by vertical contraction joints may move relative to each other during an earthquake, resulting in the gradual opening and closing and possible shear movement at the joint surfaces. This paper presents the formulation of a joint constitutive model for a zero‐thickness joint element that can simulate both the opening and closing and shear sliding behaviour, as well as the non‐linear shear key effects …