1999 – Working with Safe Dams
Norm Robins
A strategy designed to ensure that an existing dam continues to perform effectively will include:
- a set of operating instructions.
- maintenance of the reservoir components.
- an ongoing review of structural performance.
- a system to indicate the appropriate application of resources.
- the ability to respond to an incident.
This paper will explore each of these issues and how they may be applied to dams in a variety of situations. These situations include water supply reservoirs, flood retarding basins, levees and wastewater lagoons. While each situation is different, the underlying principles will remain consistent. The range of situations encountered by Victorian Water Authorities provides the inspiration for the development of an efficient approach to the management of the safety of dams.
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Papers
2011 – Foundation Preparation and Seepage Barrier Installation at Wyaralong Dam Construction Project
Learn moreConrad Ginther, Colleen Stratford
The Wyaralong Dam Alliance (WDA), a consortium of seven engineering and contracting companies, was contracted to design and construct the Wyaralong Dam, which impounds the Teviot Brook 14 km from Beaudesert in Queensland, Australia. The dam is an approximately 500 metre long, 48 metre high Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC) structure built on a foundation generally consisting of massive sandstone with intermittent conglomerate zones consisting of cemented gravels, mudclasts and sands. Geologic features of note with regard to dam stability and long term seepage at the site are dominated by downstream sloping bedding features and conglomerate zones. In addition to the bedding-related features, two predominant vertical to subvertical fracture sets exist. The condition of the vertical fractures ranges from tight and fresh at depth to highly weathered and filled with dispersive clay and gravels near the foundation surface. To provide a durable and effective long term seepage barrier for the dam, an extensive foundation cleaning and treatment operation was undertaken. This comprised drilling, blasting, and excavation of the majority of the highly weathered rock and dispersive materials supplemented by localized installation of small cut-offs and dental concrete and the construction of a double-line grout curtain installed using real time computer monitoring, the GIN methodology, and balanced, stable grout mixes.
Foundation Preparation and Seepage Barrier Installation at Wyaralong Dam Construction Project
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2011 – Comparing methods for estimating loss of life from dambreak flooding for two Australian dams
Learn moreSimon Lang, Chriselyn Meneses, Peter Hill, Kristen Sih
In Australia to date, the empirical method developed by Graham (1999) is the most widely applied approach for estimating loss of life from dambreak flooding. However, as the move to risk-based approaches of dam safety management has gathered momentum internationally, increasingly sophisticated techniques for estimating loss of life have emerged. One of these models is the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) HEC-FIA model. HEC-FIA models the influence of flooding, structure characteristics, and warning and evacuation assumptions on loss of life in a spatially distributed manner. In contrast to Graham (1999), HEC-FIA also allows the user to model the loss of life for both dambreak and natural flooding.
This paper presents the results from the first Australian application of HEC-FIA to two dams in southeast Australia. The application of empirical methods developed by Graham (2004) and Reiter (2001) is also discussed.
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2011 – Finite Element Transient Thermal Analysis of the Enlarged Cotter Dam
Learn moreCraig Messer, Francisco Lopez, and Manoj Laxman
The Enlarged Cotter Dam is a new 80m high Roller Compacted Concrete Dam being constructed to augment the water supply for the Canberra region. Due to the size of the main dam and the extreme climatic variations in the ACT, where temperatures range from sub zero in winter to in excess of forty degrees in summer, it is expected that significant stresses will be generated during the cooling of the structure. For this reason it is essential that an understanding of the magnitude of these stresses is developed through the initial strength development period and at critical periods such as the first and second winter when the temperature differential between ambient conditions and the core of the structure may be greatest. The development of thermal stress within the structure has critical impacts on both the RCC mix design and the dam construction equipment and methodology.
For the Enlarged Cotter Dam, thermal stresses were investigated using both two and three dimensional finite element transient heat transfer analyses, making use of the thermal properties derived from laboratory testing including instrumented thermal blocks, as well as established literature. Modelling of the thermal stresses in the dam required the development of time dependent concrete properties, such as strength, stiffness and heat generation, with the latter based on test results and calibrated to actual measured values. Additionally, site dependent conditions for ambient temperature, external conduction, convection and radiation factors, dam foundation temperatures and restraint, dam construction sequence, formwork, joint spacing, insulation and timing of reservoir filling were also modelled.
Initial thermal modelling of the dam demonstrated that significant tensile stresses and potential cracking could develop within the structure, at both early and mature concrete ages. Subsequent analyses were developed to investigate methods of reducing these stresses to within acceptable limits. This paper presents the results of the thermal analyses, including the methods to be employed during and after construction to minimise cracking without impacting construction costs and even optimising the speed of construction.
Finite Element Transient Thermal Analysis of the Enlarged Cotter Dam
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2011 – Mokoan – Return to Wetland Project
Learn moreDavid R Jeffery
In 2004 the Victorian Government announced the decision to proceed with Australia’s largest dam decommissioning project, the return of the 365,000ML capacity Lake Mokoan to a wetland.
The project has been completed and has resulted in significant river health benefits through liberating environmental flows in the Broken, Goulburn, Murray and Snowy Rivers. Decommissioning has allowed the recovery of water savings for return as environmental flow to the River Murray (30,000 ML/year) and Snowy River (21,000 ML/year).
With decommissioning complete, development of a significant wetland complex across the 8100 hectare site has commenced.
This project has been undertaken at a time when the Broken River basin was exposed to its worst drought conditions in over 100 years and within 11 years of the worst flooding experienced in the nearby Rural City of Benalla. These extremes of climatic conditions and their impacts on the local and irrigation communities have ensured considerable community and stakeholder interest in the decision to proceed with decommissioning and in the subsequent delivery of each of the project elements.
This paper provides an explanation of the drivers for the project, describes the process followed and some of the challenges experienced over the projects seven year life and presents some of the lessons learned along the way.
2011 – MOKOAN – RETURN TO WETLAND PROJECT
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