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Papers 2000
2000 – The Dam Safety Upgrade at Lake Eppalock
Learn moreRichard R. Davidson, Roger Vreugdenhil and Mark Foster
Significant cracking was observed on the crest of the main embankment at Lake Eppalock for many years, but in recent years increasing movement upstream during low reservoir levels indicated a progressively deteriorating stability situation. Investigations also revealed cohesive filter material that would allow a crack to propagate. A fast-tracked remedial works program was completed in 1999 to rebuild the highly vulnerable upper rockfill shells and filters, both upstream and downstream. To manage construction risk, the works were carried out directly by G- MW with innovations in removal, protection and replacement of the downstream shoulders, and placement of a new multi-zone filter.
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Papers 2002
2002 – Strategic Risk Assessment for Thirteen Victorian Dams
Learn moreRichard R. Davidson, Shane McGrath, Adrian Bowden, Andrew Reynolds
Goulburn-Murray Water (G-MW) manages thirteen major dams for the State of Victoria. As part of its Dam Improvement Program (DIP), five priority dams were identified for detailed safety and performance evaluation. Over the last three years, the design reviews have been completed and a series of dam safety issues have been identified which pose societal and financial risk. Substantial financial resources will be required to be applied over a considerable period to bring these dams into compliance with established international and Australian standards. Which of these dam safety issues should be addressed first? In what sequence and with what urgency should the actions be implemented? Can cost-effective interim targets be set? How can the remaining eight
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dams, which could also pose societal and financial risk, be prioritised for future detailed investigation? To answer these questions a quantitative risk assessment approach was used. The approach utilised expert engineering and consequence panels and included input to and review of the process and outcomes by a stakeholder reference panel reporting directly to the Board of G-MW. The implementation of a strategic risk management process has now begun to progressively and systematically reduce the dam safety risk across the entire dams portfolio. This process recognises that available funding for risk reduction measures is very limited, so the highest risks are reduced in an incremental fashion to achieve interim risk targets and eventually meet contemporary dam safety standards. -
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Papers 2015
2015 – Revisiting a forgotten dam building technology: concrete core walls in embankment dams
Learn moreRichard R. Davidson, P.E., CPEng Kenneth B. Hansen, P.E.
Early in the twentieth century, placing concrete core walls within embankment dams was a popular construction technique for small to medium height dams. It became in vogue as a replacement for the popular British dam construction technology of puddle clay core dams which were used between the 1860’s and 1920’s. It avoided the many problems with semi-hydraulic / manned placement methods of the puddle clay cores within narrow trenches. However, after the mid 1930’s this concrete core wall construction fell out of favour because of the improvements made in embankment compaction methods and the difficulties in building reinforced concrete core walls to more significant heights.
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Today concrete core wall embankment dams are now reaching an age where their continued performance is being questioned. This dam building technology has become extinct and is unknown to the last few generations of dam engineers. Therefore, it is relevant to re-examine this dam building technology in a modern context and work on answering the following questions. How have these dams performed after almost a century of service? Are there unanticipated performance features that have produced positive results when subjected to extreme flood and seismic events? Does the concrete provide enhanced performance over time? What role does steel reinforcement play in the performance of the core wall? Are there lessons here that can be applied to the more common concrete cutoff wall solutions being applied to embankment dams with seepage problems? This paper examines these questions with a number of illustrative case histories to provide a retrospective illumination of this forgotten dam building technology.
Keywords: Embankment dams, Concrete core walls, Dam construction history. -
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Papers 2016
2016 – The Myth of the Perfect Seepage Barrier
Learn moreRichard R. Davidson, Michael Zoccola, Barney Davis, John W. France
Seepage barriers have become an essential element of dam safety upgrades for many aging dams. Our construction technical specifications are generally written to achieve a degree of perfection that may not be possible or practical. Many practitioners believe that grouting alone can achieve an acceptable seepage barrier through a pervious rock foundation. However, precedent from many Corps of Engineers dams has revealed that grouting can only treat those open features that the grout holes intersect. What about clay filled fractures or solution features that resist grout penetration but then erode over time? Can any grout treatment ever be considered as a permanent seepage barrier? Cutoff walls through embankment dams and their foundations are generally considered as a more permanent seepage barrier. However, do we have the means to construct a perfect seepage barrier wall, or are defects to be expected. Do these defects represent fundamental flaws that require risk mitigation? How can we verify that we have built an acceptable seepage barrier that meets the design intent?
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Papers 2012
2012 – The QCC Process in USACE Risk-Informed Decisions
Learn moreRichard R. Davidson, Nate Snorteland , Doug Boyer, John France
The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has embarked upon a monumental journey in applying risk-informed decision making in the management of the safety of the 650 major dams for which it is responsible. This process has shifted safety criteria from fully deterministic to a probabilistic basis. There has also been a shift from de-centralized district-based decision-making to centralized management of resources through the new Risk Management Center (RMC) and the Senior Oversight Group (SOG), a group of senior engineers and managers from across the USACE organization. The risk process began about five years ago with a portfolio prioritisation using screening-level risk assessments of the entire dam inventory, culminating in Dam Safety Action Classifications (DSAC) for each of the dams. Based on this risk prioritisation, Issue Evaluation Studies (IES) were initiated for the highest risk DSAC I and II dams, with each study including detailed failure mode and risk analyses for each dam. Because the Corps was relatively new to dam safety risk analyses, and their dam design history was one of following codified manuals of practice, various risk tools were prepared to provide guidance when assessing the risk of potential static, seismic and flood failure modes, as well as life loss and economic consequences of dam failure. Although these tools provided useful guidance to a relative large population of inexperienced risk estimators, many of these early risk assessments were flawed; they provided unrealistically high estimates of failure probabilities and the tools did not help estimators understand or explain each failure mode. To assist the RMC in bringing more defensible risk estimates to the table and improve consistency of the evaluations, the Quality Control and Consistency (QCC) review process was initiated about two years ago. The QCC process provides high level review of IES activities, including detailed reviews of risk analyses, by a small group of experienced dam safety risk estimators. Not only has this brought risk estimates into a more reasonable range, it has provided valuable training for risk estimators, and important checks and balances on the risk-informed decision making process for moving dam safety upgrade projects forward. The justification for a number of very expensive projects has been challenged and, in some cases, re-prioritised, and other projects have risen to the prominence they deserve.
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Papers 2011
2011 – The Challenges of Building Tailings Dams in Seismic Regions
Learn moreRichard R. Davidson, Joergen Pilzand Bruce Brown
Recent earthquakes in Chile, New Zealand and Japan have created a new focus on the safe design of tailings dams in seismic regions of the world. Building sand and rockfill embankments to sustain large ground motions and provide crucial drainage of excess pore pressures remain daunting challenges at each site. Are conventional hydraulic deposition practices still viable? What new technologies can be considered? Addressing seismic stability of existing upstream method tailings dams whether currently in operation or closed is stretching our seismic geotechnical engineering profession to its limits of understanding of behaviour. Creating a safe, secure environmental storage must also be integrated with the geotechnical and hydrologic concerns. Is there a viable risk context to consider these competing issues? This paper will raise these issues within the international context and suggest a prudent path forward.
2011 – The Challenges of Building Tailings Dams in Seismic Regions
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