Assessment of sliding block methods performance considering energy-representative parameters

In this research, permanent deformation of ten real earth dams were estimated using all the sliding block models and then, the errors between calculated deformations by each model and observed deformations of earth dams were presented and discussed in detail. The applied motion for estimating displacement of each dam was the recorded acceleration in the dam site. It was indicated that, conservative and non-conservative estimations of each model can be separated by Specific Energy Density and Response Ratio parameters in the time and frequency domains, respectively. It was also shown that, there is a logical relationship between the occurred earthquake-induced displacements and the specific energy density.