The shape of an arch dam has of paramount importance in its ultimate behavior and eventually settles all design criteria. Variable curvature arch dams evolved to be economical in shape optimization studies. In Finite Element Analysis, the arch dam geometry is to be modeled very accurately. But the arch dam geometry may be varying in the three dimensions and with irregular boundaries depending o...

Recently the design flows of many dams have been re-evaluated, resulting in spills often larger than the original ones. In many cases, occurrence of revised flows would result in dam overtopping because of insufficient storage and spillway capacity of reservoirs. Embankment dams whilst common are more likely to fail than other dam types when overtopped in an uncontrolled manner because of breac...

SUMMARY No RCC dams have been built in Germany to date. HRB Waldbärenburg could be the first one. This project is part of the national flood control programme of the Federal State of Saxony in Germany and will go into the approval procedure at the end of 2012. The RCC dam technology has been chosen as it provides environmental advantages against other design alternatives: essential lower impact...

This study focuses on the shape optimization of concrete gravity dams considering dam– water–foundation interaction and nonlinear effects subject to earthquake. The concrete gravity dam is considered as a two–dimensional structure involving the geometry and material nonlinearity effects. For the description of the nonlinear behavior of concrete material under earthquake loads, the Drucker–Prage...

Risk analysis of gravity dam stability involves complicated uncertainty in many design parameters and measured data. Stability failure risk ratio described jointly by probability and possibility has deficiency in characterization of influence of fuzzy factors and representation of the likelihood of risk occurrence in practical engineering. In this article, credibility theory is applied into sta...

The design of arch dams usually involves a prolonged process of successive trial and error redefinitions. The current computer technology however enables to automate this task, in order to achieve the most economic solution overall. In the paper, the implemented optimization method of the geometry of concrete arch dams is presented as well as case studies of its application in the design of two...

Introduction In the foreword to the Malaysian Guidelines for Operation, Maintenance and Surveillance of Dams (Malaysian Inter-Departmental Committee on Dam Safety 1989), it is stated “The expanding inventory of dams has brought into focus the subject of dam safety”. At the time of the guideline publication, there had been a considerable increase in the inventory of dams with those constructed d...