2015 – Ailments of the first concrete dam in Sri Lanka and the remedial works
Susantha Mediwaka, Nihal Vitharana, Badra Kamaladasa
Nalanda dam is the oldest concrete gravity dam on the Island built in the 1950s by the Ceylon Department of Irrigation. The dam was built in 9 monoliths having a dam crest length of approximately 125m and a maximum height of about 36m. The spillway consists of: (1) a low-level uncontrolled ogee-crested horse-shoe section with a crest length of 46m, and (b) a high-level broad crested weir with a crest length of 43m.
It was designed and constructed according to the then standard practices adopted throughout the world. Over the years, Nalanda dam has been showing signs of deterioration which is suspected to be Alkali-Aggregate Reaction (AAR). The dam was also shown to be deficient with respect to the stability levels required by modern standards. Under a program of dam safety improvement of the dams throughout Sri Lanka, it was decided to stabilise Nalanda dam as the first step in addressing a series of issues affecting the dam.
This paper presents the construction history, current issues, design assumptions and salient construction features in the upgrading of the dam to modern dam safety requirements.
Keywords: Concrete dams, dams Sri Lanka, concrete buttressing, upgrade, horse-shoe spillway
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2015 Papers
2015 – Hydration-Induced Stresses in Concrete Buttressing of Existing Concrete Gravity Dams
Learn moreNihal Vitharana, Nuno Ferreira
The raising and/or stabilising of existing concrete gravity dams by continuous concrete buttressing is a viable solution and, in some cases, it is the only solution available. There are few medium-large dams in Australia currently under consideration for raising with continuous buttressing.
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Two of the major issues to be surmounted are: (a) the existing dam should not be subjected to cracking (particularly on the upstream face) due to heat-hydration effects, and (b) the requirement for the two dam bodies to resist the hydrostatic and other loadings as a monolith (unified dam).
However, there is great need for understanding the mechanisms involved in selecting an appropriate heat-of-hydration model and in calculating thermal stresses rationally. Due to such lack of understanding, expensive precautions, mostly with compounding conservatisms, would be adopted in concept and detailed designs eg. shear-keys on the interface, artificial cooling, post-grouted interface, anchor bars at the interface, concrete with high cement contents. On the other hand, unsafe designs could be the result.
The paper discusses these issues highlighting that a rational approach can be adopted to economise the design and construction processes. An example is also presented to demonstrate how the potential for temperature-induced cracking in new and old dam bodies can be evaluated with reduced uncertainty by considering all the mechanisms involved in a holistic way.
Keywords: Heat-of-Hydration modelling, raising concrete dams, thermal stresses, concrete buttressing -
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2015 Papers
2015 – Towards Risk-Based Surveillance Programmes – Maximising the Value of Your Monitoring Spend
Learn moreMark Arnold, Chris Topham, Phil Cummins
A central tenet of the ANCOLD Guidelines on Dam Safety Management (2003) is that the higher the consequence of failure of a dam, the more stringent the surveillance scope, frequency, and safety criteria that should be applied to that dam. This concept has generally served the industry well to date in assisting regulators and dam owners to focus on the dams that could have the highest impacts if they failed. ANCOLD 2003 does also suggest that risk may be taken into consideration, however it is the experience of the authors that for dam surveillance and monitoring programmes, the majority of owners and consultants are reluctant to stray too far from the tables provided in the Guideline. However, two owners have recently embarked on a formal process to apply a risk based approach to the specification of surveillance and monitoring for their dams. This paper outlines how sub-optimal outcomes that can arise when the guideline tables are applied exclusively, presents the process undertaken by two owners of large portfolios of high consequence dams, and demonstrates the benefits achieved when a risk based approach is used. The paper concludes that any update or rewrite of the 2003 Dam Safety Management Guidelines should promote a risk based, rather than a consequence based approach to surveillance and monitoring.
Keywords: Risk, risk-based surveillance programme, instrumentation, monitoring.
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2015 Papers
2015 Poster – Rowallan Dam: management of flood risk during a major dam upgrade
Learn moreKim Robinson, Andrew Pattle and Thomas Shurvell
Rowallan Dam is a 43m high clay core rock fill dam located in Northern Tasmania. The dam impounds 121GL used for hydro power generation and has a High A consequence category.
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Over the summer of 2014/15 major reconstruction works were carried out on the dam to repair a piping incident from 1968. The work entailed reconstructing two sections of the dam down to foundation level and the upper 7m of the 568m dam crest. During the work, the dam was temporarily exposed to a significantly increased flood overtopping risk.
A range of measures were taken to manage the overtopping risk; such as increasing the dewatering capacity of the dam, lake draw down, installation of a sheetpile wall, development of emergency backfill procedures and a flood forecasting system.
The focus of this paper is on the flood forecasting system and how this was integrated into the overall management of overtopping risk during construction. The forecast models were run automatically on a 2 hour schedule using the latest BoM forecast, telemetered lake levels and rainfall from 7 gauges surrounding the catchment. The system provided a continuous 7 day lake level forecast which guided the site team on when to release water to manage the storage.
In the event that the lake level forecast reached a predetermined trigger level, the dam safety team would have been automatically notified and various emergency procedures would have been triggered in response to the flood warning.
This paper discusses the measures that were taken to manage the flood risk, how it worked in practice and conclusions which are applicable more generally to managing overtopping risk during dam works.
Keywords: dam construction flood risk, flood forecasting -
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2015 Papers
2015 – An analysis of dam safety incidents in Victoria
Learn moreMaree Dalakis, Dr Saman de Silva, Siraj Perera and Dr Gamini Adikari
This paper describes the results of a statistical and qualitative analysis on historical dam safety incidents in Victoria, the first study of its kind conducted in the State. The study investigates trends arising from qualitative dam safety incident data collected by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning since the year 1996. The reported incidents are categorised based on their severity and statistical trends are identified in relation to the types of incidents common to regulated and unregulated dams, as well as common responses to incidents, including their post-incident operation. The geographical distribution of incidents across the State is also analysed to determine the effects of seismicity on dam safety incident rates. Furthermore, the unique Victorian conditions of sustained drought and subsequent flooding and their impact on incident rates are investigated through the combined analysis of geographical incident distribution and streamflow data. The incident data is further assessed according to the frequency of visual inspection and reporting of the structures in order to gauge the relative influence of these practices, and dam regulation in general, on mitigating incident risk in dams. An understanding of dam safety incident trends and the impact of inspection and reporting practices is increasingly important given the increasing expectation for dam owners to properly operate and maintain their assets with minimal resources and finances.
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Keywords: dam, safety, incident, historical, failure. -
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2015 Papers
2015 – A Methodology for Shortlisting Numerous Flood Mitigation Storage Options in Catchments
Learn moreRussell Cuerel, Richard Priman, Michel Raymond, Ian Hanks
Following significant flood events across Queensland over the last five years causing significant damage in South East Queensland, Bundaberg Burnett region, St. George in the south west and more recently in Central Queensland in the Callide Valley, there has been renewed interest in finding solutions to flooding issues.
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Increasing the available flood storage within a catchment is a well-known method of improving flood mitigation outcomes for developed areas. In many basins/catchments, potential flood storage development options (new storages or augmentations to existing storages) can be identified by reviewing previous water supply investigations and flood studies and by scanning topographic mapping. From such site identification there will often be numerous combinations of possible flood storage development options to consider because of the number of tributaries which may contribute to major flood events.
This paper outlines a methodology to screen, within a relatively short timeframe and at relatively low cost, a large number of identified flood storage development options and combination development scenarios and shortlist for more detailed analysis. The screening process is heavily reliant on hydrologic assessments to rapidly short-list scenarios for assessment and then relies on traditional engineering and economic assessments to do the fine tuning of the analysis.
Keywords: flooding, damages, impacts, flood storage, flood mitigation, dams, benefit-cost ratio.