2017 – A Turkey’s Nest Dam on Top of a Waste Rock Dump – An Innovative Solution for the Kidston Pumped Storage Project
Richard Herweynen, Jamie Campbell, Mohsen Moeini
Hydropower storage plays an expanding role in integrated power systems internationally and can enable increased use of intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.With an increased amount of renewable energy within the Australian grid, pumped storage has gained increased focus in the past 2years. Entura have been working with Genex Power Ltd. to investigate, evaluate, optimise and design the Kidston Pumped Storage Project, located at the old Kidston gold mine in Northern Queensland. Through this design process, the final arrangement developed included an upper reservoir turkey’s nest dam to be built on the existing waste rock dump on the northern side of the Eldridge Pit, using the existing waste rock dump material and lining it with an HDPE liner. The original waste rock dump was formed during the mining operation by progressively dumping the waste rock predominantly from the Eldridge Pit excavation, with the haul truck traffic being the only compaction that occurred. Since the closure of the mine about 20 years ago, some consolidation of the waste rock dump has occurred.As a result, the key risks identified for the construction of the turkey’s nest dam on top of the waste rock dump were: (1) the stability of the slopes of the waste rock dump, which were generally at the angle of repose for the rockfill material; (2) the absolute settlement of the waste rock dump as the final dam crest level requires a settlement allowance in excess of the flood freeboard requirements; and (3) the differential settlement as excess differential settlement could cause fatigue stress cracking within the liner.This paper presents the investigation and modelling undertaken to confirm the feasibility of constructing this turkey’s nest dam on top of the existing rock waste dump, utilising the historical data on dumped rockfill dams. The paper also presents the feasibility design developed for the upper storage.
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Papers 2017
2017 – Tailoring Consequence Assessments for Retarding Basins
Learn moreAndrew Northfield, Simon Lang, Peter Hill
Melbourne Water currently manages more than230retarding basins (RBs). A large portion of these are less than 4 metres high, and traditionally structures of this size have not been subject to intermediate or detailed ANCOLD Consequence Assessments. However, the need to understand the failure consequences for smaller structures has increased over time, as risk based approaches to managing safety have expanded from large dams to other water retaining assets.
Undertaking detailed consequence assessments for all Melbourne Water’s RBs would not be practical, given the costs and time involved. Therefore, this paper describes a method for assessing the level of ANCOLD Consequence Assessment that is justified, based on the structure’s attributes. It also presents an equation that was used to estimate peak outflows from RB failure. The peak outflow estimates can be used to model approximate failure inundation extents downstream of small dams and RBs.
The paper draws on work that HARC have recently undertaken for Melbourne Water to assess the failure consequences for 88 RBs. The outcomes are relevant to other organisations that own or manage significant numbers of small water dams or RBs.
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Papers 2017
2017 – A Unique Experience with Liquefaction Assessment of Impounded Brown Coal Ash
Learn moreRadin Espandar, Mark Locke and James Faithful
Brown coal ash has the potential to be a hazard to the environment and local communities if its storage is not well managed. The risk of releasing contained ash from an ash tailings dam due to earthquake induced liquefaction is a concern for mining lease holders, mining regulators and the community.Ash tailings dams are typically raised by excavating and compacting reclaimed ash to form new embankments over slurry deposited ash, relying on drying consolidation and minor cementation for stability. Understanding the post-earthquake behaviour of the brown coal ash is necessary to assess the overall stability of an ash tailings dam during and after seismic loading events.A particular concern is the seismic motion may break cementation bonds within the ash resulting in a large reduction in shear strength (i.e. sensitive soil behaviour) and potential instability. There is limited information available for black coal ash however, brown coal ash has different properties to black coal ash and no known work has been carried out to date in this area.The dynamic and post-earthquake behaviour, including liquefaction susceptibility, of the brown coal ash was studied, specifically for Hazelwood Ash Pond No. 4 Raise (HAP4A) in Latrobe Valley, Victoria. In this study, different well-known methods for liquefaction susceptibility, including the methods based on the index parameters, the cone penetration test (CPT) and the cyclic triaxial testing, were used and the results were compared.It was found that the impounded brown coal ash is susceptible to liquefaction and /or cyclic softening. Triggering of the liquefaction or softening was assessed based on the results of cyclic triaxial test.In this methodology, the relationship among axial strain(εa), Cyclic Stress Ratio (CSR) and number of uniform cycles (Nequ) was determined based on the triaxial test results. Then, asite-specific CSR was determined using the ground response analysis. The CSR and number of uniform cycles (Nequ) for each ash layer was calculated and added to the εa-CSR-Nequgraph to determine the expected axial strain during an MCE event. It was found that the calculated axial strain for the ash embankment and ash deposits during site specific Maximum Credible Earthquake (MCE) are less than the axial strain of the ash material required for triggering of liquefaction and the brown coal ash in HAP4A does not liquefy and/or soften the material during an MCE event. Also it was found that the insitu tests which break the cementation between particles(such as CPT)does not provide accurate results on triggering or sensitivity.
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Papers 2017
2017 – Detailed Seismic Hazard Assessment of Mt Bold Area: Comprehensive Site-Specific Investigations on Willunga Fault
Learn moreZivko R. Terzic, Mark C. Quigley, Francisco Lopez
The Mt Bold Dam, located in the Mt Lofty Ranges in South Australia, is a 54m high concrete arch-gravity dam that impounds Adelaide’s largest reservoir. The dam site is located less than 500m from a suspected surface rupture trace of the Willunga fault.Preliminary assessments indicate that Mt Bold Dam is likely to be the dam with the highest seismic hazard in Australia, with the Flinders Ranges-Mt Lofty region experiencing earthquakes of sufficient magnitude to generate shaking damage every 8-10 years on average. Prior evidence suggests that the Willunga Fault is likely capable of generating M 7-7.2 earthquakes.As part of the South Australia Water Corporation (SA Water) portfolio of dams, Mt Bold Dam is regularly reviewed against the up-to-date dam safety guidelines and standards. SA Water commissioned GHD to undertake detailed site-specific geophysics, geotechnical and geomorphological investigations, and a detailed site-specific Seismic Hazard Assessment (SHA) of the Mt Bold Dam area. The results of this investigation will be used to inform decisions related to planned upgrade works of the dam.Geomorphological mapping of Willunga Fault, detailed geological mapping, analysis of airborne lidar data, geophysical seismic refraction tomography and seismic reflection surveys,and paleoseismic trenching and luminescence dating of faulted sediments was conducted to obtain input parameters for the site-specific SHA.Discrete single-event surface rupture displacements were estimated at ~60 cm at dam-proximal sites. The mean long-term recurrence interval (~37,000 yrs) is exceeded by the quiescent period since the most recent earthquake (~71,000 yrs ago) suggesting long-term variations in rupture frequency and slip rates and/or that the fault is in the late stage of a seismic cycle. The length-averaged slip rate for the entire Willunga Fault is estimated at 38 ± 13 m / Myr. Shear wave velocity (Vs30) of the dam foundations was estimated based on geotechnical data and geological models developed from geophysical surveys and boreholes drilled through the dam and into the foundation rock. The nearest seismic refraction tomography (SRT) lines were correlated with the boreholes and those velocity values used in the Vs30 parameter determination. All relevant input parameters were included into seismic hazard analysis with comprehensive treatment of epistemic uncertainties using logic trees for all inputs.Deterministic Seismic Hazard Analysis (DSHA) confirmed that the controlling fault source for the Mt Bold Dam site is Willunga Fault, which is located very close to main dam site (420m to the West).For more frequent seismic events (1 in 150, 1 in 500 and 1 in 1,000 AEP), the probabilistic analysis indicates that the main seismic hazard on the dam originates from the area seismic sources (background seismicity).Based on deaggregation analysis from the site specific Probabilistic Seismic Hazard (PSHA), the earthquakes capable of generating level of ground motion for the 1 in 10,000 AEP event can be expected to occur at mean distances of approximately 22km from the dam site(with the mean expected magnitude atMt Bold Damsite estimated at Mw >6).For less frequent (larger) seismic events, the contribution of the Willunga Fault to the seismic hazard of Mt Bold Dam can be clearly noted with Mode distance in the 0-5 km range, which indicates that most of the seismic hazard events larger than the 1 in 10,000 AEP comes from the Willunga Fault. The Mode magnitudes of the events are expected to be Mode Magnitude at Mw= 6.6 for a segmented Willunga Fault scenario, and Mw= 7.2 for a non-segmented fault scenario.Consideration was also given to the upcoming update of the ANCOLD Guidelines for Earthquake, which calls for the determination of the Maximum Credible Earthquake (MCE) on known faults for the Safety Evaluation Earthquake (SEE) of “Extreme” consequence category dams. The MCE for Mt Bold Dam was estimated from the DSHA; in terms of acceleration amplitude, the MCE event approximately equals the 1 in 50,000AEP seismic events.
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Papers 2017
2017 – Variability between Rainfall Runoff Methods and Observed Floods: Implications for Risk, Design, Dam Operation and Communities in Australia
Learn moreJames Stuart, Michael Hughes
Several recent rain events in Australia have resulted in impoundment flood levels where there was a surprising variability between the Annual Exceedance Probability (AEP) of the flood level and that of the rainfall. The issue was highlighted during the Queensland Flood Commission of Inquiry (QFCI, 2011) by the Queensland Dam Safety Regulator who suggested there may be a problem with design hydrology after a dam safety event that saw impoundment levels of around 1:9000 AEP with a 1:200 AEP catchment rainfall at North Pine Dam, north of Brisbane in 2011. Wide disparities have occurred at Wivenhoe Dam west of Brisbane, at Callide Dam, west of Gladstone and at other locations.
This paper examines the Generalised Short Duration Method (GSDM) (BoM, 2003) and the Revised Generalised Tropical Storm Method (GTSMR) (BoM, 2003) typically used for dam flood capacity assessments in an attempt to explain the variability outlined above and whether it is, in part, exacerbated by the methods themselves.
It finds that processes of generalising rainfall depth, intensity, temporal and spatial characteristics are working together with adopted hydrological methods to contribute to such variability, that in the worst case could lead to PMF levels in dams with much less rainfall than the associated PMP would infer.
Moreover, two key assumptions; that of AEP neutrality (AEP of rainfall is equal to that of the flood) and frequency of PMP based on catchment area, which are the foundations stones of our understanding of flood frequency for large structures, are found to be untested or simply interim advice. This leads to the conclusion that the likelihood of floods in the range 2000 year AEP to PMF may continue to show surprising variability, potentially of an order of magnitude or more, compared to the rainfall AEP.
There is a need for a review of these methods and potentially provision of interim guidance as these methods are currently being used in dam upgrade programs throughout Australia and are also the basis for emergency planning. The identification of these issues concerns current methods and are independent to any discussion on climate change.Prior to commencing, it is worth defining two terms that re-occur throughout the document:
Annual Exceedance Probability (AEP): The probability that a given rainfall total accumulated over a given duration will be exceeded in any one year. AEP Neutrality is the theory that assumes the probability of the rainfall can be transferred to the resulting flood.Average Variability Method (AVM): Technique for estimating design temporal pattern of average variability to ensure AEP Neutrality in transition from PMP to PMP design flood
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Papers 2017
2017 – Comparing the New Rare Design Rainfalls with CRCFORGE Estimates
Learn moreC.Jolly and J.Green
New rare design rainfalls were released for Australia in February 2017, for durations from one to seven days and probabilities from 1in 100Annual Exceedance Probability (AEP) up to 1 in 2000 AEP.The differences between the previous rare design rainfalls using estimated Cooperative Research Centre –FOcussed Rainfall Growth Estimation (CRC-FORGE) method and the new rare design rainfall estimates vary with location, duration and probability. In this paper, these differences are explored spatially through the use of national maps, comparing percentage change between the two datasets for selected durations and probabilities. Before this comparison with the new rare design rainfalls could be completed, the State-basedestimates had to be resampled and aggregated to form a national data set for Australia.For rare design rainfalls, it is often the catchment values that are required to determine the gross rainfall for design purposes. The impact of the revised areal reductions factors and rare design rainfalls is explored through case study catchments in Tasmania.
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