Temperature Effect on the Creep Behavior of the Upstream Bituminous Concrete Masks of the Bouhnifia Dam

Abstract

This paper, presents creep behavior of the concrete bituminous and it evolution under three different temperatures (17°C, 32°C, and 40°C) and their effect on the stress curves evolution at the upstream mask in the bouhnifia dam (Algeria), who is considered a rock fill dam of 55m high sealed by an upstream sealing mask in bituminous coating 20 cm thick. Creep is a time-dependent deformation resulting from constant load who is characterized by a nonlinear behavior of the materials, in which the material continues to become deform under a constant load. In this study, we have applied the Finite Element Method based on a model called (Time Hardening Model) using the computer code ANSYS 17.0 in order to simulate a creep behavior of the upstream mask during 20000 hours of loading and the evolution stress curves under three different temperatures (17°C, 32°C, and 40°C) successively. First, we simulate the temperature distribution in transient conditions during a day of sunshine on the facing, and then we evaluate the creep behavior of the mask under different temperatures mentioned above.