TVM5115 Planning and Design of Dams

The course is offered in English to the students in the first year of the MSc programme Hydropower Development and third or fourth year of the siv.ing. studies in Civil and Environmental Engineering. The course covers the basic in dam engineering for civil engineers, including planning and design of concrete and embankment dams, soil mechanics for dams and concrete technology for dams. The students shall know the basic design and construction principles for various types of dams and be able to select type of dam, pre-design and estimate the costs for a dam site after completion of the course.

Knowledge

The students shall have knowledge about:

• Type of dams and their characteristics
• How dam sites are selected and evaluated
• Basics of soil mechanics of importance for dams: settlement, seepage and stress evaluation, stability of slopes.
• Basics of concrete property and dam concrete challenges
• How to identify and quantify different loads on dams
• Failure mechanism of different dam types
• How to design filter and slope protection of embankment dams
• Criteria and principles of dam seepage and stability analysis
• The importance of monitoring for dam safety.
• How to classify dams based on impacts of possible dam failure
• The importance of dam safety inspection, supervision and emergency action planning.

Skill

Students will be able to:

• Participate in the selection of feasible dam site and type of dam for a hydropower project
• Calculate pore pressure, vertical and horizontal principal stress,
• Calculate settlement, time rate of consolidation of dams and dam foundation or soil layers.
• Carry out basic seepage analysis of dams and dam foundations
• Carry out basic stability analysis of dams and slopes.
• Identify failure mechanism
• Design filter and slope protection of embankment dams
• Classify dams given relevant information
• Participate in dam safety inspection and supervision.

General competence

The students shall know the basic design and construction principles for various types of dams and be able to select type of dam and predesign and estimate the costs for a dam site.

Digital 4 hour school exam. Mandatory exercises must be passed before the exam.

If there is a re-sit examination, the examination form may be changed from written to oral.

The lecturers come from the university and the hydropower industry, all with international experience. All lectures and exercises are given in English.

The course will be carried out as a guided self study if the number of students registered to the course is five or less.