2006 – Dam Instrumentation or Damn Instrumentation – A South African Perspective
Chris Oosthuizen
A brief overview of dam surveillance is given from a South African perspective and more specifically the perspective of the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF). DWAF’s Ten Commandments for the design of dam monitoring systems serve as introduction and this is followed by a summary of the design steps. The various parameters that can be measured and the South African preferences are discussed briefly followed by a synoptic description of crack and joint monitoring in South Africa. This provides the background for DWAF’s recent developments in 3-D Crack-Tilt gauges. Some of DWAF’s achievements as well as some of the blunders made by the author during the past 30 years are illustrated by means of a few case histories.
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Papers 2006
2006 – Developing Techniques for New Dam Design and Construction Management – Recent New Zealand Experience
Learn moreR. Dawson, J. Grimston, R. Cole, D. Bouma
The authors have been involved in the design and construction of several embankment dams in New Zealand over the past decade, and have considerable corporate knowledge from dams designed by the company in its 47-year history. This paper examines four dams which are relatively small to medium, ranging in height from 10 to 19 m with moderate storage volumes. Three of the dams service landfills and the fourth a wood processing mill. Such dams may provide the designer with considerable challenges due to their relatively low capital cost resulting in limited investment in geotechnical investigation at the front end of the project, with varying levels of change often required during construction due to unforeseen conditions as a result of the limited investigations.
The general arrangement and conceptual design principles for each of the dams is described followed by the field investigation and laboratory testing undertaken for each dam, together with the interpreted ground conditions.
The experiences from construction have helped to develop techniques for a balance between preliminary design, investigation, and evolution of the design and specification during construction. It is imperative to develop a sufficiently detailed preliminary design, on the basis of readily available information such as visual and geological assessment, to allow the investigation to be thoughtfully designed to allow the major assumptions to be verified. This needs to be followed by a skilfully executed geotechnical investigation with the designer advising on findings and changing direction as necessary through the investigation. An investigation trench along the full alignment of the cutoff trench (if envisaged in the design) is warranted. Earthworks specifications should be evolved early in the construction phase through compaction trials using specific plant for the site, and backed up by insitu and laboratory testing.
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Papers 2006
2006 – Dam Safety Management in Austria
Learn morePius Obernhuber
In Austria, special procedures for ensuring dam safety apply to dams higher than 15 m or reservoirs with a capacity of more than 500,000 m³. There are at present about 90 dams which belong to this category. The largest one is the 200 m high Kölnbrein arch dam.
In general, it is the task of the dam owner to provide for the safety of a dam. For that, he has to appoint qualified engineers, the “Dam Safety Engineers”, which are in charge of dam surveillance and maintenance. The Water Authority verifies that the owner makes the necessary provisions for dam safety. Water Authorities are the Provincial Governor and the Federal Minister of Agriculture and Forestry. The Water Authorities are supported by a governmental advisory board, the “Austrian Commission on Dams”.
Projects for new dams or for reconstruction of existing dams are examined by the Austrian Commission on Dams. Approval by the Water Authority is based on the findings of this commission. A group of a few experts of the commission accompanies the project during construction, first impounding and the final acceptance procedure. In normal operation, dam attendants carry out visual inspections and measurements. The most important instruments are measured automatically and the data are transmitted to a permanently manned control centre. The Dam Safety Engineer has to inspect the dam at least once a year. His annual report to the Water Authorities must contain an assessment of the safety of the dam. The Federal Dam Supervisory Department of the ministry checks the annual reports and carries out an in-depth inspection of the dam at least every five years.
In the case of extraordinary events, the Dam Safety Engineer has to assess the situation and he has to set appropriate measures. An Emergency Action Plan is available for all dams of the said category.
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Papers 2006
2006 – Meeting the Challenges of Tomorrow, Today – Human Resources – A Changing World
Learn moreKaren Soo Kee
Strategic resource management has never been more important than it is today with the aging of the “baby boomers” and their ongoing exodus from the workforce. The vacancies they leave in professions such as engineering are just beginning to be felt and will exponentially escalate over the next few years. Specialised professions such as dam engineering and related professions will be hit the hardest as the knowledge and skills learnt over decades are depleted.
The lack of skilled staff and in fact the lack of interest of young engineers in entering the dam industry is one of the critical challenges for today. How do we attract professional staff into the field of dam safety before the exodus creates a “black hole” that can never be filled? And how can we ensure the knowledge transfer from existing skilled staff to newer staff to retain expertise within the industry?
Another issue for resource management is that tomorrow’s workers, the “X &Y generations”, will be unlike the current and previous generations of workers. These workers will be less likely to have a mortgage, will have fewer children and be more interested in lifestyle, not career. They will be extremely confident, well-educated and very mobile. The future will be a sellers market. The challenge here will not only be to attract and recruit talented workers but also to retain them.
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Papers 2006
2006 – Corporate Governance for Dam Safety
Learn moreS. Frazer
Ensuring compliance with the Regulator’s requirements is a cornerstone consideration for any water corporation in planning its risk minimisation strategies against dam failure. With the increased focus on due diligence and corporate governance however, there are emerging themes that are of equal importance for a water corporation in planning protections against its core risks to dam safety.
These considerations include:
- documenting and implementing plans and strategies to ensure corporate compliance with the Regulator’s requirements and updating these in line with legislative and policy changes;
- Documenting and implementing the corporation’s defences to the common law duty of care for public liability, including keeping up to date with the latest case law development locally and internationally in interpreting implications in respect of damage to property and injury and loss of life in relation to dam failure.
- Adopting behaviours and practices that bear out a compliance culture – is the current dam safety assessment and training “best practice” and is this enough to defend a claim? What is reasonable in economic and practical terms to ensure defensibility?
- ensuring the Board, Executive and other Officers are informed of operational decisions and incidents and their advice is implemented;
- arranging and maintaining appropriate insurances if available for public liability and property damage, as well as protections for directors and officers, both past and current. •
- Developing and implementing a policy for disclosure, document management and retention that will support investigation for legal proceedings purposes; including providing privilege for relevant legal advices.
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Papers 2006
2006 – Recent Advances in the Seismic Analysis of Intake Towers
Learn moreJohn Bosler and Francisco Lopez
The ANCOLD “Guidelines for the Design of Dams for Earthquake” were published in August 1998. The guidelines contain a brief outline of the performance requirements and recommend, in general terms, a method of analysis for intake towers.
Over the last three decades there has been considerable research on the seismic performance of intake towers as they move into their inelastic range. In the years following the publication of the ANCOLD guidelines, some of the findings from this research have been incorporated into revised design procedures issued by the US Army Corps of Engineers. These procedures, if embraced by ANCOLD and the local dam engineering community, are likely to have a significant impact on how the structural adequacy of existing towers under seismic loading are assessed.
Rocking behaviour in which the tower becomes unstable as a transient condition has long been recognised as acceptable under certain conditions. Attempts to prevent tower rocking by measures such as retrofitting tensioned ground anchors may, in some situations, be of limited value in improving the seismic performance of a tower and could result in an increase in bending moments in the tower stem. Guidance is now available on the amount of rocking behaviour that is tolerable.
For seismic events greater than the Operating Basis Earthquake most towers will start to exhibit inelastic behaviour. Specific guidance is also now available on the length of time during an earthquake that bending moments in excess of the elastic capacity can be tolerated, the amount by which these moments can exceed the nominal bending moment capacity and the vertical extent of the tower stem that can be stressed beyond its elastic limit.
The paper discusses the different approaches taken by ANCOLD and the Corps of Engineers. Key differences in outcomes are highlighted using a worked example for a typical reinforced concrete tower and the ANCOLD approach is found to be generally, but not always, more conservative. The paper concludes with recommendations for dealing with these differences.
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