Aging, Shaking, and Cracking of Infrastructures: From Mechanics to Concrete Dams and Nuclear Structures

This self-contained book focuses on the structural safety assessment of existing structures subjected to multiple hazards through advanced numerical methods.

Whereas the focus is on concrete dams and nuclear containment structures, the presented methodologies can also be applied to offshore structures, wind turbines, bridges, and other large concrete structures.

Hazards include aging (alkali-silica reaction primarily) and shaking (seismic), both potentially leading to extensive cracking. Nonlinear (static or transient) finite element analysis is hence integrated with both earthquake engineering and probabilistic methods to ultimately derive capacity or fragility curves for a rigorous safety assessment.

Expanding its focus beyond design aspects or the state of the practice (i.e. codes), this book is ideal for professional engineers seeking regulatory evaluation.

• Self-contained with ample coverage of fundamental underpinnings in the first part.
• Stands as the only book detailing the advanced nonlinear analysis of concrete dams and nuclear containment structures.
• Features highly inter-disciplinary coverage tying together nonlinear transient finite element analysis, concrete aging, earthquake engineering, probabilistic analysis, and machine learning.
• Guided by the most up-to-date understanding from the peer-reviewed, archival literature.