Course Catalogue.

After participating in this course, you will have an understanding of:

• Basics of hazard and failure mode identification
• Basics of risk assessment
• Performance-based Risk-informed Design and Operation
• How to develop and implement mitigative controls to lower risk
• Developments in guidelines and regulations for water and tailings dams

Description
Dams and their appurtenant structures are unique and complex systems built for various reasons, including flood protection, power generation, irrigation, solid waste storage and recreation.

The importance of dam safety to the Canadian economy's mining, industrial, infrastructure, and energy sectors cannot be over-emphasized. Various regulatory and industry practices exist for dam design, operation, maintenance and surveillance. However, under-appreciated deficiencies, loss of appropriate controls and other factors, from initial design to long-term operations, continue to result in dam safety incidents and failures.

This course will provide an overview of emerging dam safety guidelines and issues, controls and critical controls, critical control management, hazards and failure modes identification, and the basics of performance-based, risk-informed design and operation. Several supporting case histories will be presented to illustrate these concepts.

Course Outline

• Dam Safety: Introduction, Basics and Critical Concepts
• Hazards and Failure Modes
• Setting Performance Standards and Objectives
• Critical Control Management
• Selected Case Histories
• Risk-Informed Decision Making and Risk Analyses
• Ongoing Developments in Dam Safety
• Course Summary and List of Major Takeaways

Who Should Attend

Designers • Operators • Owners • Engineers • Consultants • Contractors • Individuals with an interest in dams for water and solid waste retention, flood control, and power generation

Course Syllabus

Day 1

Module 1: Dam Safety: Introduction, Basics and Critical Concepts

 Course Introduction

• Legal Context, Regulations, Canadian Dam Association and CDA Dam Safety Guidelines
• Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management – Implications for Mine Operators
• Owner's Responsibilities
• Consequences, Probabilities and Risk Matrices
• Components of Dam Safety and Tailings Management Systems

Module 2: Hazards and Failure Modes

• Hazards: Flood and Seismicity Basics
• Event trees, Fault trees and Bowtie analyses
• Development of FMEA and PFMA analyses
• Hazards and Failure Modes Matrix

End-of-Day Discussion

Day 2

Module 3: Setting Performance Standards and Objectives

• Overview - Performance-based Risk-informed Design and Operation
• Considerations for Setting Dam & TSF Performance Standards
• Seepage
• Piezometric Levels and Hydraulic Gradients
• Seismic Resistance
• Displacement and Stability
• Performance Management Processes
• Identifying Deficiencies and Non-conformances
• Visibility - Using Performance and Compliance Dashboards
• Minimizing Drift or Deviance

Module 4: Critical Control Management

• Layers of Protection Analysis
• Risk Controls and Critical Controls
• Control Reliability
• Critical Control Management

Day 3

Module 4: Selected Case Histories

• Shikwamkwa Dam
• Oroville Spillway Failures and Human Factors
• Feijão Dam Failure – Overlooking leading indicators.
• Miscellaneous Lessons Learned
• Small dam flood management issues
• On-time and Under Budget = success?
• Recognizing and Managing Bias

End-of-Day Discussion

Day 4

Module 6: Risk Informed Decision Making and Risk Analyses

• Dam Safety and Tailings Management Systems – An Effective Risk Control?
• Systems for Risk Weighting Deficiencies
• Unforeseeable Risk: Would ANY system catch these failure modes?
• CDA and Societal Risk Criteria/Tolerability of Risk
• Owner vs Consultant perspectives
• Issues with Societal Risk: Case history – Vancouver Island Risk Decisions

Module 7: Ongoing Developments in Dam Safety

• Systems and Functional Analyses
• CDA Guideline in development – Failure Modes Analyses (FMA)
• Implications of RIDM for designs
• Priorities in a developing dam safety program

Course Summary and List of Major Takeaways