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...

THE HUGE THREE-GORGES DAM (TGD) OF THE Yangtze River is going to demonstrate the mighty power of humanity to change and fragment an area of about 58,000 km2 with the formation of a huge reservoir of 1080 km2. It is expected to exert disastrous influences on many terrestrial plants and animals, as discussed by J. Wu et al. in their Policy Forum “Three-Gorges Dam— experiment in habitat fragmentat...

saymareh dam and hydro-power plant are under construction on saymareh river in ravandi anticline, ilam province. during boring the power tunnel which crosses the anticline, a large volume of water was encountered. this volume of water was not observed in the past. considering the water quality of springs, water level of dam site piezometers, geological and hydrogeological inspections, isotope a...

Dam foundations are generally affected by water leakage and seepage, posing a significant threat to the structure's safety. Such an artificial reservoir unconditionally assumes watertight foundation, as perfect possible, ensure its stability. This brings us back thinking about adequate treatment of foundation through injections grout curtain, which ensures watertightness ground good drainage sy...

nature has always proven that it is able to overcome its problems. however, humanmanipulation has led to environmental degradations. the dryness of a thousand-year urmia lake(a brine water lake in iran) is an example of environmental degradation that happened due tosuccessive droughts and construction of dams on the basin of this lake. this study examinesmethods for the revival of urmia lake by...

The impact of the construction of a large dam on riparian vegetation cover can be multifold. How the riparian vegetation cover changes at different elevation zones in response to the construction of a large dam and the subsequent impound of reservoir water is still an open question. In this study, we used satellite remote sensing data integrated with geographic information system (GIS) to monit...

In recent years, the importance of economical considerations in the field of dam engineering has motivated many researchers to propose new methods for minimizing the cost of dames and in particular arch dams. This paper presents a method for shape optimization of double curvature arch dams corresponding to minimum construction cost while satisfying different constraints such as natural frequenc...