Research of the environmental temperature influence on the horizontal displacements of the Dnieper hydroelectric station dam (according to GNSS measurements)

Abstract The paper studies the relationship between the ambient temperature change and the horizontal displacements on control points of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station dam from 2016 to 2020. A specially developed software product analyzed the GNSS time series of measurements pre-processed by the GeoMoS system to determine the parameters of seasonal displacements and their relationship with seasonal changes in air temperature. The research established that the influence of ambient temperature in the absence of significant changes in the water level in the upper reservoir determines the cyclicity of dam deformations. It is established that the projections of velocity vectors of reference points in the ETRF-2014 system for the studied period do not exceed the absolute value of 3 mm/month. The directions of the horizontal displacement vectors in the first half of each year are opposite to the directions recorded in the second half. In the first half of the year, the dam’s body shifts towards the reservoir, while in the second half year period, it shifts-backwards. According to the three-year GNSS monitoring of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station dam, the amplitude of semi-annual horizontal oscillations of the control points relative to the dam axis is from -9.5 to +8 mm. In winter and summer, the horizontal displacements increase from the edges of the dam to its central part, and the amplitudes of the horizontal displacements move vice versa. The obtained data establish a linear analytical relationship between the average temperature and the horizontal displacements of the GNSS control points.