RCC for seismic design. [Roller-Compacted Concrete]

This article describes how the use of roller-compacted concrete is saving $10 million on the seismic retrofit of Southern California's historic multiple-arch Littlerock Dam. Throughout its 70-year existence, the Littlerock Dam in Southern California's Angeles National Forest has been a subject of the San Andreas Fault, could this 28-arch dam withstand any major movement from that fault line, much less the big one'' Working with the state's Division of Safety of Dams, Woodward-Clyde Consultants, Oakland, Calif., performed stability and stress analyses to find the answer. The evaluation showed that, as feared, the dam failed to meet required seismic safety criteria, principally due to its lack of lateral stability, a deficiency inherent in multiple-arch dams. To provide adequate seismic stability the authors developed a rehabilitation design centered around the use of roller-compacted concrete (RCC) to construct a gravity section between and around the downstream portions of the existing buttresses. The authors also proposed that the arches be resurfaced and stiffened with steel-fiber-reinforced silica fume. The alternative design would have required filling the arch bays between the buttresses with mass concrete at a cost of $22.5 million. The RCC buttress repair construction, scheduled for completion this fall, will cost about $13 million.