This webinar will review the 1938 construction failure of the upstream slope of Fort Peck Dam, Montana. The failure began at about 1:15 PM on September 22, 1938 as the construction work had progressed to within 20 feet of the final dam crest elevation. One hundred eighty men were working in the area. Thirty four men were injured. Eight men lost their lives, six of whom were never found and are buried somewhere in the dam. As a result of this s...

The 10th Annual Open Source Digital Forensics Conference (OSDFCon) will be held October 15-17, 2019 in Herndon, VA. This event allows attendees to learn about new software and meet the developers. Oct 15: Workshops: A series of 3-hour in-depth workshops (need separate ticket to attend) Oct 16: Conference: A full-day of 35-minute talks focused exclusively on open source digital forensics tools Free for government attendees through Oct. 5 Oct 17...

At a height of 770 feet, Oroville Dam is the tallest dam in the United States. On February 7, 2017, a section of the concrete chute slab of the service spillway at Oroville Dam failed during spillway discharge. Several days later, as the California Department of Water Resources was evaluating and managing discharges through the damaged service spillway during a large rainfall event, the emergency spillway activated for the first time in the pr...

Communication is important in all aspects of dam safety within an organization, with the public, and with the specific owners or stakeholders of a project. Risk communication and stakeholder participation should ensure that (1) responsible and impacted stakeholders will be partners and be afforded the opportunity to participate in decisions that impact them, and (2) communications regarding potential inundation hazard, consequences, and share...

The purpose of this course is to provide a brief introduction into the science of concrete arch dams. The review will touch on design methods used in the past, but primarily focus on the methods used in the current state of the practice. A historical review of construction techniques will be discussed, and how that relates to evaluations and the physical behavior of the structures. The basic loads and loading conditions used for analysis will...

This webinar will review the 2004 failure of Big Bay Dam. A potential failure modes framework was used to make the forensic root-cause assessment based on data and information provided by the State of Mississippi. A detailed timeline of the failure obtained through review of court proceedings will be presented including the appearance of a number of distress indicators, the seriousness of which were not recognized and acted upon by the Owner a...

This course will present potential failure modes for chute spillways and ways to design these spillways to minimize the potential for failure. 1. Understanding failure modes such as cavitation and hydraulic jacking that can affect chute spillways. 2. How to evaluate potential spillway design and construction details that could lead to failure modes. 3. How to evaluate potential spillway failure mode4. Understanding design details that can hel...

Many dams and levees have embankment drains, structure underdrains, and relief wells to control seepage through and beneath the dam and piezometers to monitor the performance of these features. Dam and levee owners, managers, and maintenance staff may be uncertain about the function of these features and what maintenance is required. This webinar will summarize seepage principles and terminology in layman's terms and describe the purposes and...

During recent years the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drone technology for the inspection and monitoring of dams and levees has increased. This rate of integration is, in part, due to FAA regulation revisions and the advantages regarding personnel safety, flexibility, speed and volume of data acquisition, and cost. This webinar presents an overview of drones and how this technology can be incorporated into dam safety inspections an...

Oroville Dam is the tallest dam in the United States. On February 7, 2017, a section of the concrete chute slab of the service spillway failed during spillway discharge, and several days later the emergency spillway was activated for the first time in the half-century history of the dam, resulting in rapid and severe erosion of the hillside below the emergency spillway weir, and prompting precautionary evacuation of nearly 190,000 downstream r...