A regularization method based on the Duvaut-Lions viscoplastic scheme for plastic-damage and continuum damage models, which provides mesh-independent and well-posed solutions in nonlinear earthquake analysis of concrete dams, is presented. A plastic-damage model regularized using the proposed rate-dependent viscosity method and its original rate-independent version are used for the earthquake damage analysis of a concrete dam to analyze the effect of the regualarization and mesh. The computational analysis shows that the regularized plastic-damage model gives well-posed solutions regardless mesh size and arrangement, while the rate-independent counterpart produces mesh-dependent ill-posed results.