2017 – Application of Risk Assessment to an Emergency Levee Design in an Urban Environment
Petros Armenis, Malcolm Barker, Peter Christensen, Graham Harrington
The Canterbury Earthquake Sequence in September 2010 and February 2011 caused large areas of land to change by differing amounts throughout Christchurch, New Zealand. Land levels fell by more than 300 mm in some areas. This increased flood risk in the tidal reaches of the Avon River. Urgent repairs were completed with the objective to restore the tidal river defences to a crest level equivalent to a 1% AEP tide level. This work needed to be completed prior to impeding spring tides.
The levees will be required for up to 20 years and then probably be rebuilt on a new alignment. To better understand the risks associated with the ongoing reliance of the levees for flood protection in the interim, a risk assessment was undertaken using conventional Australian National Committee on Large Dams (ANCOLD) practices and levee design procedures. Careful consideration was made to the performance of the existing levees under seismic, flood and tidal loading from which the societal and individual risk profiles were derived. The work included the following:
- The identification of critical sections along both sides of the 11 km levee river alignment through consideration of the foundation and embankment construction
- Combining seismic events with tides and flood events with tides using levee lifetimes of 1, 5, 10 and 20 years
- Consideration of overtopping failure and piping through the levee embankment, foundation or tree roots and narrowed embankment sections owing to trees being blown over
- Application of the International Levee handbook (CIRIA 2013) and the “Piping Toolbox” (USACEet al 2008
- Evaluation of risk reduction with upgrade options
This paper will present the levee design and the process applied for the analysis of the levee and the upgrade options selection
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2017 Papers
2017 – Have Physical Hydraulic Models Had Their Day?
Learn moreBronson McPherson, Scott Marshall1, Clément Monteil, Eric Lesleighter
This paper explores whether physical modelling has had its day in modern engineering or whether there is still a place for it. Physical hydraulic modelling is used as a tool for analysing hydraulic behaviour for a wide range of applications including; dams, channels,rivers,coastal etc. With advances in computer technology and power, the last few decades have seen the rise in numerical modelling, e.g. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), often as an adjunct to physical modelling and sometimes as a replacement. A number of physical modelling case studies have been explored to identify the value provided by physical modelling.
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2017 Papers
2017 – The Design Flood Frequencies for My Dam Have Changed – Why?
Learn moreMark Pearse, Peter Hill
Risk assessments for large dams and the design of upgrades are often dependent on estimates of peak inflows and outflows well beyond those observed in the historic record. The flood frequencies are therefore simulated using rainfall-runoff models and design rainfalls. The recent update of Australian Rainfall and Runoff (ARR) has revised the design rainfalls used to model floods that are of interest to dam owners. This will change the best estimate of flood frequencies for some dams. However, for most dams the impact of revised design rainfalls on flood frequencies is small compared to other factors that can change (independent of dam upgrades). These include model re-calibrations to larger floods, changes to operating procedures that affect the drawdown distribution and improvements in how the joint probabilities of flood causing factors are simulated. In this paper, we look at how the design flood frequencies for some of Australia’s large dams have changed, the reasons for this and then identify five key questions for dam owners to ask to aid assessment of whether the hydrology for a dam should be reviewed
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2017 Papers
2017 – Underwater Rehabilitation of Dams with Geomembranes
Learn moreAlberto Scuero, Gabriella Vaschetti, John Cowland
Waterproofing geomembranes have been used for new construction and rehabilitation of dams since 1959. Research for underwater rehabilitation with geomembranes started at the beginning of the 1990s. The first installation was made in 1997 at Lost Creek arch dam in USA, where a SIBELON PVC geomembrane system was installed partly underwater, to restore watertightness to the upstream face. Techniques for underwater cracks/joints repair, and for staged repair, were developed and first adopted in 2002 and 2010 respectively. The paper presents through some significant case histories the range of underwater applications available today. The paper also presents a new underwater technology, the Sibelonmat®mattress, that allows water-tightening canals without reducing water flow.The Sibelonmat®can be used in embankment dams, to waterproof the upstream. face or as upstream blanket
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2017 Papers
2017 – Estimating the Duration of Flood Overtopping for Risk Assessment
Learn moreD Stephens, S Lang, P Hill, M Scorah
Robust estimates of the duration of flood overtopping are a key input into the dam safety risk assessment process. For embankment dams, the likelihood of erosion of the dam crest, downstream face and eventual unravelling of the embankment are heavily dependent on the duration of water flowing over the crest. Similarly, the chance of erosion of the abutments of concrete dams is strongly linked to the duration of floodwaters overtopping the dam. Previously, it has been difficult to define the annual exceedance probability (AEP) of the flood required to cause overtopping of a certain depth for a certain duration, and coarse assessments have typically been made based on critical storm durations of the dam crest flood (DCF). This approach carries significant uncertainty, particularly for structures on smaller catchments where the critical storm duration on outflow may be relatively short. In these cases, it has been difficult to confirm with any reliability that the flood required to achieve a significant duration of overtopping has an AEP close to that of the DCF. This paper describes a new algorithm that has been incorporated into the RORB hydrological model which allows for a frequency curve of flood overtopping duration to be determined within a Monte Carlo framework. The results of this analysis are presented for a case study of a quantitative risk assessment, to demonstrate how the outcomes influenced numerous aspects of the risk analysis process.
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2017 Papers
2017 – Public Safety Around Dams: Best Practices for Barrier & Signage Placement at Water Control Dams & Hydroelectric Powerplants
Learn morePaul S. Meeks
In June 2008 a young girl kayaking at a hydroelectric control dam owned by Alcan in Quebec Canada, tragically drowned when she was swept through the open spillgates. The public safety boat barrier, installed the year before, failed to prevent this accident. In June 2015, Stephen Hembree took his daughter and 7 of her friends out for a pontoon boat ride on Lake Linganore to celebrate her 16th birthday. A short time later, Mr. Hembree was dead while his daughter and her friends were be rescued by helicopter as they clung to boulders in the spillway. Contrast these incidents to one in March 2017, when the public safety boat barrier installed by Alliant Energy at Kilbourn Dam was credited with preventing the loss of life after a woman fell into the river above the dam. What went wrong in the first 2 instances and what can we learn from the third incident? What steps can dam owners take to prevent accidents like these from happening?
The first two incidents represent preventable loss of life at a dam while the third incident proves how a proactive approach to public safety results in reduced liability for dam owners and lower loss of life. In the Alcan instance, the public safety barrier installed to prevent this very scenario was instead installed in a location that doomed the girl even before she set her kayak in the water. The second instance demonstrates how a dam owners lack of risk awareness coupled with a boat owners carelessness resulted in a fatality.
Using the incidents above, this presentation, modeled after the Canadian Dam Associations Guidelines for Public Safety Around Dams, will educate owners and operators how to identify “dangerous” zones above and below dams. We will consider the effects of surface water velocity of individual survivability and barrier effectiveness. Flow-3D models will be shown to illustrate the effect of barrier alignment and velocity to increase an individual’s ability to “self-rescue”. Lastly, we will integrate within the presentation practical guidelines for the use of signage, sign size, lettering height and message consistency. The presentation will conclude by examining lessons learned in the Alcan incident and presenting how a proper public safety barrier and signage plan would be implemented.
More people have died from accidents around dams than have died from dam failures. The Canadian Dam Association published its guidelines in 2011 and the result has seen a significant reduction in fatalities and injuries as a result of recreating around Canadian Dams. The United States Society on Dams (USSD), the Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) all have embarked on efforts, modeled in large part around the CDA Guidelines to bring Public Safety out of the dam safety toolbox so Public Safety is viewed as a separate managed system. This is being conducted in an effort to educate and alert dam owners, operators and recreational users to hazards and risks in and around dams.
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