SANBA Tool: Knowledge Capitalisation and Lessons Learned on Dams and their Safety

Much is known about dam design, construction and failure and degradation modes, though the information is scattered and sometimes lacks clarity. Consequently, it is interesting to develop tools that allow gathering, capitalizing and making explicit current and future information. These tools can be learning or documentation support systems. In this article, we present the prototype tool called SANBA, composed of a knowledge base, SANBA-dom, specifically developed for dam design, construction and failure and degradation modes (domain knowledge), coupled with a case base, SANBA-cas, which gives a detailed description of incidents and accidents that have occurred on structures (diagnoses, consequences and corrective actions). The method relies on 4 main stages: determining study granularity, field identification and structuring, implementing a computer tool and instantiation. Validations were carried out after the identification and instantiation stages. Two different technologies were used for the 2 components of the SANBA tool: the SANBA-cas component was implemented using Symfony (framework PHP open-source) and the SANBA-dom was implemented using a Wiki technology. Web technologies make formalized knowledge more accessible and simplify its capture. These bases are currently being filled and validated at Irstea Aix-en-Provence. Later, they will be accessible to external users for consulting and writing tasks as a function of the rights conferred to each type of user.