Concrete dams |
Concrete solutions: strengthening America’s dams
Dr. David Alexander and Margarita Tasevich explain how a
team of government and academic experts led by the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate are joining forces to ensure critical infrastructure in the US remains resilient and sustainable
Above: Dam and spillway structure at Fort Randall Dam on the Missouri River – U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Omaha District. Photo: USACE
CONCRETE IS OMNIPRESENT IN every critical infrastructure system in the country because it is strong, inexpensive, and can be cast into almost any shape, including dams and bridges. After a certain time, as with most building materials, water infrastructure like dams start to deteriorate and need repair and retrofitting, so they can serve the public longer. More than 91,000 dams are listed in the US Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) National Inventory of Dams (NID), which catalogues dams taller than 25ft or reservoirs with storage capacity more than 50 acre- feet (1 acre surface area to 1ft depth). NID classifies the downstream hazard potential as high, significant, or low. Currently, 76% of the 91,750 dams across the country built in the past 150 years are classified as high hazard potential, meaning that their failure could result in loss of life, as well as economic losses and environmental damages.
Aging dams need sustainable modernization to
ensure their resilience and continuous reliability into the next century and beyond. Different types of everyday environmental stressors – chemical action, corrosion, freezing and thawing – have been gradually deteriorating concrete dams across the US, and severe weather events, extreme temperatures, erosion, and rising water levels are adding more strain, exacerbating the aging impacts, ultimately causing dams and levees to fail. Heavy rains caused the failure of the Oroville Dam [1] in California in 2017, the Spenser Dam in Nebraska in 2019, and the Edenville and Stanford Dams in Michigan in 2020, all built early in the 20th century. Simply replacing old dams is not a viable option due to high costs and the enormous amount of work.
Seeking resilient, reliable solutions for aging dams
In 2020, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) started a priority five-year research effort to find reliable science and technology solutions for aging dams. S&T is collaborating with stakeholders from the infrastructure and emergency management
Left: University of Kansas West Campus Structural Testing Facility. Photo: KU
34 | July 2023 |
www.waterpowermagazine.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53
