Trapezoidal Gravity Dams Working in a State of Pure Compression*

摘要

A gravity dam with a trapezoidal cross section is subjected to its own weight and hydrostatic pressure. The resulting elastic field, assumed to be plane strain, is studied by determining the minimum value of the angular opening of the dam above which the principal stresses are negative on the side under hydrostatic pressure and nonpositive on the other side. The conjecture that, under this condition, any tensile stress present in the interior of the dam is negligible has been confirmed by numerical results and is subjected to a partial analytical verification.