Effects of surface waves on hydrodynamic pressures on rigid dams with arbitrary upstream face

The effects of surface gravity waves on earthquake‐induced hydrodynamic pressures on rigid dams with nonvertical upstream face are examined, taking the compressibility and viscosity of water into account. A simple closed‐form solution is obtained by using the Trefftz numerical method. The boundary under study is reduced to the upstream face only and the degrees of freedom of the problem are restricted to the number of trial functions used for analysis. For harmonic base excitation, a number of numerical examples for various geometries of the upstream face are presented. The hydrodynamic pressure distribution, the resultant lateral force and its effective height of application are evaluated. The results are strongly influenced by the upstream shape and, in a lesser degree, by the consideration of surface waves. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.