Seismic performance of earth-core and concrete-faced rock-fill dams by large-scale shaking table tests

•Two of the highest ECRDs and CFRDs were simulated by large-scale shaking table tests.•Frequency, acceleration, deformation and failure pattern of the models were studied.•Seismic response of CFRD was much smaller than the ECRD model under strong earthquake.•The seismic performance of CFRD is superior to ECRD.

Two of China's highest earth-core rock-fill dams (ECRDs) and concrete-faced rock-fill dams (CFRDs) were simulated by large-scale earthquake simulation shaking table tests in this work. A series of staged tests were performed, including white noise, different types of earthquake excitations with different magnitudes etc. The seismic performance of the ECRD and CFRD models were analyzed and investigated. The test results indicated that reservoir impoundment influenced the structure and seismic characteristics of the ECRD model much more than the CFRD model. The average fundamental frequency of the CFRD decreased less than the ECRD model when subjected to strong excitation. The acceleration amplification factors decreased as the input peak acceleration increased. The maximum acceleration occurred at the top of the ECRD model, while it occurred at 0.6–0.9 dam height of the CFRD model. Seismic residual deformations of the two models were very small. When subjected to strong earthquake excitation, the residual deformation of the CFRD model was smaller than that of the ECRD model. The dominant failure pattern of the two models was shallow sliding at the height of 3/4 on the downstream slope. The above analysis indicated that seismic performance of CFRD was superior to ECRD.