Full Length Article
Reducing risks in the investigation, design and construction of large concrete dams

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2016.11.002Get rights and content
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Abstract

An overview of the GeoSafe 2016 Symposium topic is provided using the example of large concrete dams for purposes of illustration. It is essential that the risks associated with large dams be evaluated rigorously and managed proactively at all stages of their lives so that the risk of failure remains As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP). Rock engineering features of large concrete dams that require particular attention, assessment and monitoring during the investigation, design, construction, initial filling, in-service operation, and subsequent repair and upgrade stages of the lives of concrete dams are identified and illustrated by examples from recorded experiences. A number of major concrete dam failures, including that of the St. Francis dam, California, U.S.A., in 1928, have led to significant developments in rock mechanics and rock engineering knowledge and techniques, as well as in dam design and review processes. More recent advances include a range of analytical, numerical modelling, probabilistic, reliability, failure mode and risk assessment approaches.

Keywords

Concrete dam failure
Dam engineering
Risk assessment
Rock engineering design
Site investigation

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E.T. (Ted) Brown is a graduate of the Universities of Melbourne (BE 1960; MEngSc 1964), Queensland (PhD 1969) and London (DSc (Eng) 1985). He began his engineering career in the then State Electricity Commission of Victoria’s brown coal mining operations in 1960. After several years at what became James Cook University in Townsville, he joined the staff of the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, in 1975. He was appointed Professor of Rock Mechanics in 1979, and served as Dean of the Royal School of Mines (1983–1986) and Head, Department of Mineral Resources Engineering (1985–1987). In October 1987, Professor Brown returned to Australia as the University of Queensland’s first full-time Dean of Engineering. He became Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University in October 1990 and Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor in January 1996. Since retiring early from that position in early 2001, he has worked as a Senior Consultant to Golder Associates Pty Ltd. and had served on a number of Boards. Professor Brown has wide international experience as a researcher, teacher, consultant and writer on rock mechanics and its applications in the mining, civil engineering and energy resources industries. He served as Chairman of the British Geotechnical Society in 1982 and 1983, and as President of the International Society for Rock Mechanics from 1983 to 1987. He was elected an International Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering, UK, in 1989, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 1990. In 2001, he was appointed a Companion in the Order of Australia for “services to the engineering profession as a world expert in rock mechanics and to scholarship through promotion of the highest academic and professional standards.” He was awarded the Consolidated Gold Fields Gold Medal of the then Institute of Mining & Metallurgy in 1984; a Centenary Medal by the Australian Government in 2003 “for service to Australian society in mining and civil engineering”; the John Jaeger Memorial Award of the Australian Geomechanics Society in 2004; the President’s Award of the Australasian Institute of Mining & Metallurgy for 2006; the International Society for Rock Mechanics’ highest honour, the Müller Award, in 2007; the SME Rock Mechanics Award in 2010; and the Douglas Hay Medal of the Institute of Metals, Minerals & Mining in 2013.

Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.