2011 – If it ain’t broke don’t fix it – or should you? Lessons learned from relying on past performance of mechanical assets.
Stuart Richardson
The application of maintenance to mechanical assets is a mature and well understood discipline. Although techniques and methods differ from industry to industry, the experiences and knowledge of practitioners should be transferable, but are they?
A challenge faced by all engineers is finding the appropriate balance between obtaining detailed physical evidence of asset condition through invasive disassembly and inspection against assessing condition based on monitoring and past performance.
This paper describes the experiences of the author in applying mechanical maintenance skills in the dams environment and shares some important lessons learned along the way.
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Papers 2011
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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Papers 2011
2011 – Hinze Dam Stage 3 Foundation Curtain Grouting
Learn moreRob Campbell, Tom Kolbe, Ron Fleming, Christopher Dann
Hinze Dam is an Extreme hazard category water supply dam situated in the Queensland Gold Coast hinterland, owned and operated by Seqwater (formerly owned by Gold Coast City Council). The Hinze Dam Stage 3 works involved raising the previously 65m high central core earth and rockfill embankment approximately 15m to a maximum height of approximately 80m.
The Stage 3 works included a program of foundation curtain grouting, consisting of six discrete grout panels, five of those beneath areas where the embankment was extended and one beneath part of the spillway enhancement works. Five of the six grout panels were essentially single row panels, with one or more partial rows added in specific areas of high grout take. The remaining grout panel (Panel 4) was constructed as a triple row panel.
A number of challenges were encountered and overcome during the Stage 3 foundation grouting works due to highly variable foundation conditions, ranging from extremely low strength residual soil to highly fractured and permeable high strength rock.
The grouting works were undertaken using downstage grouting techniques, with manual recording of data, manual control of grout pressures and injection rates and use of predominantly neat cement grout mixes.
A key issue in the execution of the foundation grouting works was the maximum grout pressures applied to the foundation and this was discussed in detail between the project design team and external review panel. This paper presents the results from project specific grout trials and production grouting to demonstrate that closure of the foundation was consistently achieved (with one exception discussed herein), which supports the grouting approach employed and the adopted grout pressures.
This paper presents a case study description of the Stage 3 foundation curtain grouting works, including a summary of key learnings which may be of benefit to future dam foundation curtain grouting projects.
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Papers 2011
2011 – Tailings Storage, Current and Future Trends
Learn moreBruce Brown, Mark Coghill
Tailings management practices have evolved significantly over the last 30 to 40 years with emphasis on long term geotechnical and geochemical stability to meet community expectations and company liabilities. The main drivers have been environmental protection both during operations and post closure, public safety and water conservation. Mining companies have become aware of the significant risks resulting from the operation of tailings facilities with a number of high profile failures occurring in recent times. The common practice of building a containment structure and depositing tailings as unthickened slurry is being challenged and tested against alternative tailings treatment technologies. These include high rate thickening, paste thickening and filtration. The potential benefits of these technologies include significant reduction in process water losses, reduced design duties for the confinement structures and improved conditions for closure. Notwithstanding these potential benefits, very few facilities have implemented the new technologies due to economic constraints imposed by the evaluation methods used by the mining industry. This paper summarises the available tailings treatment technologies and the resulting implications for tailings facility design. It reviews the benefits and critiques the economic evaluation method currently in use and recommends that the industry changes its evaluation methodology to drive future trends.
Tailings Storage, Current and Future Trends
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Papers 2011
2011 – The Recent Developments and Application of Large Ground Anchors for Dams
Learn moreMark R. Sinclair & Richard J. Rodd
Over the last six years there have been ongoing significant developments in the design, fabrication and particularly of the corrosion protection details for high capacity ( >13,500kN MBL ) re-stressable ground anchors used to improve stability of gravity dams. These Australian based developments and the resultant specifications and details have now become the de-facto standards adopted.
The ANCOLD Register dams to have had this generation of cables installed have included; Ross River Dam, Lake Manchester Dam, Catagunya Dam, Tinaroo Falls Dam and Wellington Dam. These projects include the highest capacity permanent ground anchors installed to date worldwide. Some smaller capacity anchors installed into dams have also benefited from this technology.
The Recent Developments and Application of Large Ground Anchors for
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Papers 2011
2011 – Factors Influencing the Estimation of Extreme Floods
Learn moreRory Nathan, Peter Hill
This paper provides an overview of the different simulation frameworks used for the estimation of design floods.. For small events the behaviour of many flood modifying factors is highly variable and chaotic, whereas as the magnitude of the event increases so does the organising influence of the dominant meteorologic conditions. The approach to design flood estimation will depend upon the availability of data and the exceedance probabilities of interest. The techniques can vary from frequency analysis of the data recorded at a site to rainfall-runoff modelling with design rainfall inputs derived from regional frequency analysis. For extreme floods, which are of relevance for assessing flood loadings for dams and the assessment of spillway adequacy, the stochastic (Monte Carlo) approach offers a number of advantages over the traditional deterministic approach. Although there has been significant progress in design flood estimation practice in Australia over the last couple of decades there remains many significant research and training needs.
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