DAM SAFETY AND EARTHQUAKE
Rashidul Hasan 1 *, Bijoy
Abstract
Nowadays, we can see an increasing
amount of dam damage or failure
due to aging, earthquakes occurrence
and unusual changes in weather. For
this reason, dam safety is gaining
more importance than ever before in
terms of disaster management at a
national level.
Introduction
A dam is a structure built to store
large volumes of water, control the
flow of water, or divert water flowing
from upstream. Under International
Humanitarian Law, dams are
classified as dangerous installations
due to their potential to cause
massive damage in the case of
failure. Dam failures may lead to loss
of lives, economic losses, and
destruction of the environment.
Although dam failures are caused by
several factors, such as extreme
inflow, use of sub-standard
construction materials, poor
maintenance, and design error,
failures are relatively rare.
Keywords
Richter scale, seepage, boil, slump, cracking, protocol, flooding, infrastructural hazards.
2
Bhowmik , Afrahim Chowdhury 3 ,Farhana Rahman 4
1,2,3, Student ′ s of Civil Engineering, Daffodil International University
*Team leader
DOI: https://bit.ly/32aklMN
Accomplishment
● Catchment hydrological monitoring system.
● Dam structure monitoring instrumentation.
● Emergency public warning, mass notification system.
● Supervisory and data acquisition & analytic system.
Fig-1: Primary stage to burst a dam.
Fig-3: Different types of causes to fail a dam.
Fig-2: After blast, the speed of water flow.
Conclusion
Reason Technology is available for designing & building dams &
● Earthquake’s and extreme inflow. structures that can safely resist the effects of strong
● Poor maintenance, especially of outlet pipes. ground shaking. The assumption appurtenant civil
● Spillway design error. structureToday,
thatthe
is seismic
safe atsafety
theoftime ofstorage
a large construction remains
dam includes the
following safety elements:
● Human, computer or design error. safe during its whole service① lifestructural safety, ② During
is not realistic. dam safety
the
monitoring, ③ operational safety and maintenance, and ④
● Internal erosion or piping, especially in earthen dams. life span ofemergency
a dam, several seismic safety assessments
planning. All items are equally important.
will
● Geological instability. be needed if new information on the seismic hazard
● Sub-standard construction materials/techniques. becomes available. Keeping a dam in a safe condition
requires proper maintenance of the equipment and
Reference installations as well as the civil structures.
Hinks, J. (2015). Dams and earthquakes. SECED 2015
Conference: Earthquake Risk and Engineering towards Acknowledgement
a Resilient World 9-10 July 2015, Cambridge.
Mr. Md. Mehedi Hassan Bhuiyan,
Lecturer, Daffodil International University,
Daffodil Smart City, Ashulia, Savar, Dhaka.
I Date:11-28-2022