A great many large dams have been built and will be built in high seismic areas of China.As large dams have great significance for the national economic development

so the seismic safety evaluation of large dams is an important part of earthquake engineering.In this paper

recent research activities on the seismic safety evaluation of large concrete dams are briefly reviewed.Some key problems

which are very important for the assessment of seismic performance of concrete arch and concrete gravity dams are discussed in details.This includes seismic design criteria and earthquake input mechanism

strain-rate sensitive behavior of concrete material and its influence on the seismic response of concrete dams

dynamic dam-reservoir-foundation interaction effect

influence of joint opening on the seismic response of arch dams during strong earthquakes

nonlinear seismic response and damage development simulation of large concrete dams subjected to severe seismic actions.Comments on the ability and limitations of present available analysis procedures have been made.Finally

suggestions for further advanced study on this subject are proposed.