Constructing statistical models for arch dam deformation

In its lifetime, a dam can be exposed to significant water level variations and seasonal environmental temperature changes. The structural safety control of a concrete dam is supported by monitoring activities and is based on models. In practice, the interpretation of recorded concrete dam displacements is usually based on HST (hydrostatic, seasonal, time) statistical models. These models are widely used and consider that the thermal effect can be represented by a seasonal function. The main purpose of this paper is to present an HTT (hydrostatic, thermal, time) statistical model to interpret recorded concrete dam displacements. The idea is to replace the seasonal function with the use of recorded temperatures that better represent the thermal effect on dam behavior. Two new methodologies are presented for constructing HTT statistical models, both based on principal component analysis applied to recorded temperatures in the concrete dam body. In the first method, principal component analysis is used to choose the thermometers for the construction of the HTT model. In the second method, the thermal effect is represented by the principal components of temperature of selected thermometers. The advantage of these methods is that the thermal effect is represented by real temperature measured in the concrete dam body. The HTT statistical models proposed are applied to the 110 m high Alto Lindoso arch dam, and the results are compared with the HST displacement model. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.