Treatment of Solar Radiation by Spatial and Temporal Discretization for Modeling the Thermal Response of Arch Dams

A methodology for computing thermal loads in arch dams is proposed. The methodology considers the nonuniform distribution of solar insolation over dam faces because of shading, curvature of dam faces, orientation, and slopes. Because, in most cases, the mean daily global solar radiation is the only type available, a methodology for estimating hourly solar energy reaching dam faces is described. The methodology is applied to a case study where observations from 21 thermometers embedded in the concrete and data of climatic variables are available. The concrete temperature field is successfully computed, with good agreement between observations and predictions. The proposed methodology is compared with other approaches, and the consequences on the stress calculations are analyzed.