Ricerc@Sapienza

The seismic performance of dams must be checked against expected ground motions verifying the possible occurrence of a serviceability or of an ultimate limit state. In this framework it is generally recognised that the earthquake-induced settlement of the dam crest can be assumed as a reliable index of performance since it is representative of the overall seismic response of the dam and is suitable for the evaluation of the level of damage induced by earthquake loading. Accordingly, threshold values of the crest settlement can be introduced to check the occurrence of a given limit state.

Potential instability of large existing earth dams is a major source of seismic
vulnerability of Italy. In fact, most of them were designed before the adoption of modern
building codes, without accounting for seismic loads explicitly. Hence, there is an urgent
necessity to investigate the response of most existing earth dams to severe earthquake loading.