2015 – Towards Risk-Based Surveillance Programmes – Maximising the Value of Your Monitoring Spend
Mark 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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Papers 2015
2015 – Design of the overbank spillway for St Georges Dam
Learn moreMonique Eggenhuizen, Eric Lesleighter, Gamini Adikari
St Georges Dam is located on Creswick Creek approximately 2km southeast of the township of Creswick and 135km northwest of Melbourne. The reservoir, located within the Creswick Regional Park and originally constructed to supply water for the Creswick quartz crushing plant in the 1890s, has since been established as a popular recreational storage and is the responsibility of Parks Victoria. The dam is approximately 16m high and located across a relatively steep gully. The embankment consists of earthfill with an upstream face of rock beaching and a grass covered downstream face. The primary and secondary spillways are cut into the right and left abutments respectively.
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At the completion of a detailed design review, St Georges Dam was assessed to be within the top three of Parks Victoria’s dams portfolio in regards to Public Safety Risks. The detailed design review assessed that the risk position for the dam plotted within the unacceptable region of the ANCOLD Guidelines for the static, earthquake and flood failure modes. As such, upgrade measures were considered to be required. In 2010 and 2011, a number of significant flood events emphasised the importance of upgrade works at this dam, particularly in regards to upgrading the spillway capacity, and consequently Parks Victoria assigned these works a high priority.
SMEC was engaged to design the upgrade works for the dam. A number of arrangements to increase the spillway capacity of the dam were considered, with the most cost effective option being assessed to be a secondary spillway over the dam embankment in the form of a rock chute.
This paper describes the decision making process associated with the option selection and the methodology for designing the overbank spillway which utilised the findings in ‘Riprap Design for Overtopping Flows (Abt & Johnson, 1991), and US Army Corps of Engineers, Waterways Experiment Station, publications of standard riprap gradations and computer program CHANLPRO.
Keywords: Embankment Dams, Spillway, Rock Chute, Erosion Protection -
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Papers 2015
2015 Poster – The human elements of a successful dam portfolio safety review
Learn morePhillip Kennedy, Robert Murphy, Pat Russell, Chi Fai Wan
Central Highlands Water (CHW) owns thirty four dams varying significantly in size, age, and condition. Thirty of the dams are used for water supply purposes with the remainder providing storage for wastewater reuse schemes. Out of the thirty-four dams, eighteen are more than one hundred years old. They are zoned earthfill embankments, some with a puddle clay core. Fourteen of the dams have been assessed as having potentially high to extreme consequences if the dam fails. The key safety issues among these high consequence dams are inadequate flood capacity, slope instability, and high potential for piping.
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CHW’s management policy includes a commitment to identify, assess, prioritise improvements to, and periodically review the safety of its dams, and implement a dam safety upgrade works program. CHW’s Water Plan 3 (2013 – 2018 economic regulatory period) includes nine dam safety upgrade projects, which were identified from risk assessments and investigations carried out over several years.
In 2013, CHW and MWH formed a Delivery and Operational Efficiency Review (DOER) Group to refine and confirm priorities for the proposed dam safety upgrades. The main objectives of the DOER Group were to identify solutions to meet current ANCOLD guidelines and any opportunities to achieve 10% – 20% reduction in capital expenditure costs during planning or delivery of the works for Water Plan 3, while achieving the intended risk reduction. The key elements of the DOER were to (1) form a working group to cover operational, planning and executive management considerations together with dam safety consultants and Victorian dam management experience; (2) closely scrutinise previous assessments; (3) challenge the justification for the project; (4) understand the priorities whilst aiming to deliver a major works program; and (5) identify additional investigations.
Initial investigations of the DOER Group developed a revised program of works allowing confirmed capital works to proceed while investigations into other projects were carried out. The follow-up investigations have identified optimal outcomes through a program of cost-effective solutions for CHW.
This paper aims to share the experience from planning the DOER, and the further investigations that resulted in the development of an optimised delivery strategy for the upgrade projects.
Keywords: Delivery and Operational Efficiency Review, Risk. -
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Papers 2015
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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Papers 2015
2015 – Blasting impacts on earth embankment dams
Learn moreRobert Kingsland, Michelle Black, Andrew Russell
Managing the vibration impacts associated with blasting is a challenge for mine planners and operators. In an open cut mining environment production blasting is often an integral part of operations. The management of surface water is a key operational requirement for open cut pits and mine water dams are often a part of the water management infrastructure. Consequently, mine water dams are often subject to blasting impacts.
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For the mine operator the foremost questions are, “how close can mine blasting progress towards the dam?” and “what is the maximum vibration that the structure can be safely subjected to?” For the dam safety regulator the key concerns are around potential modes of failure, consequence of failure, the likelihood of failure and the management of risk.
With reference to case studies, this paper will discuss the acceptable blasting limits for earth dams, impacts on various dam elements and failure mode analysis. Failures modes discussed include embankment cracking, slope failure and deformation, foundation cracking and outlet structure cracking. Risk mitigation measures will be presented including design, operation and monitoring controls.
Keywords: blasting impacts, embankment dams, coal mine. -
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Papers 2015
2015 – The Challenges Dam Owners Face When Considering Engineering Repairs in a Commercial Climate
Learn moreSarah McComber, Peyman Bozorgmehr
Boondooma Dam is a concrete-faced rockfill dam with an unlined, uncontrolled spillway chute. Construction was scheduled for completion in 1983; however a spill event occurred during the last stage.of construction Following this spill event an Erosion Control Structure (ECS) was built across the spillway chute to help mitigate any future scouring.
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The spillway performed as expected during minor spill events in the 1990s and early 2000s. During the significant rainfall event of 2010/11, significant scour occurred to the spillway chute and downstream of the ECS, as a result of the spillway operation.
Following the 2010/11 flood, emergency repairs were made and long term repair solutions were investigated. However, during Tropical Cyclone Oswald in January 2013, the dam experienced the flood of record, and further scour occurred in the spillway chute.
The long term repair solution was reviewed in light of the 2013 damage. A solution is required that would satisfy the engineering problem and prevent further damage, while satisfying the commercial considerations faced by dam owners, insurers, customers and downstream stakeholders.
Keywords: Boondooma Dam, flood damage, scour damage, commercial engineering solutions.