The position selected for the dam will depend on the amount of water it will hold back in the reservoir. It also needs to be located where the rock or soil is strong enough to support its weight. The civil engineers decide on the best type of dam for the site and on the most suitable materials to be used.
They have to consider all of the forces that can act on the dam and its foundation. These include the force of the reservoir water on the dam and the effect of the weight of the dam on the materials within it and on the foundation below. In some regions, the effects of earthquakes have to be considered. Civil engineers carry out mathematical calculations to model the dam and the effects of the forces on them. When the calculations get too complicated to do by hand they use computers.
With these calculations they can make sure that they are designing safe structures. The pipework, valves and floodgates for dams are designed by mechanical engineers. The civil engineering designers are responsible for producing technical drawings showing how the dam is to be constructed.
They also produce documents stating exactly how some of the construction processes should be carried out to make sure that the final dam is built to a high standard. Manufacturing engineers work with all aspects of manufacturing from production control to materials handling to automation. These engineering fields are closely related, and deal with the design of ocean vehicles, marine propulsion systems, and marine structures such as harbors, docks, and offshore drilling platforms.
A thin cable of fiberoptic strands and electrical conductors connects the ship to a remotely piloted robotic vehicle on the seafloor 7, feet below as it shoots live, high-definition video of volcanic smoker vents and strange life-forms. The video is linked in real time to a communications satellite 22, miles above and, from there, into classrooms coast to coast. Mechanical engineers are often referred to as the general practitioners of the engineering profession, since they work in nearly every area of technology, from aerospace and automotive, to computers and biotechnology.
Mining engineers study all phases of extracting mineral deposits from the earth. They design mines and related equipment and supervise their construction and operation. They also work to minimize the environmental effects of mining. Nuclear engineers harness the power of the atom to benefit humankind. They search for efficient ways to capture and put to beneficial use those tiny natural bursts of energy resulting from sub-atomic particles that break apart molecules.
As a nuclear engineer, you may be challenged by problems in consumer and industrial power, space exploration, water supply, food supply, environment and pollution, health, and transportation. Participation in these broad areas may carry you into many exciting and challenging careers. These may include interaction of radiation with matter, radiation measurements, radioisotope production and use, reactor engineering, and fusion reactors and materials.
Petroleum engineers study the earth to find oil and gas reservoirs. They design oil wells, storage tanks, and transportation systems. They supervise the construction and operation of oil and gas fields.
Petroleum engineers are researching new technologies to allow more oil and gas to be extracted from each well. Are you a casino enthusiast? You know that playing casino can be fun and challenging, but you would like to do it anywhere? Well there is no need to worry because if you have an internet connection then you can have a good time in the online casinos.
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Various aspects such as stresses on natural and manmade environment, reservoir and foundation structure, effects of temperature and water on the concrete structure, and various types of concrete fractures are taken into consideration by dam engineering. Image Credits : Glen Canyon Dam at media Dam engineering is used throughout the process of dam construction, i. Some external factors have forced changes.
Extreme weather events will naturally lead to more frequent examples of severe flooding. In most cases, dams are already well built to withstand these eventualities, but the incident in South Yorkshire in England in , when hundreds of people were forced to evacuate their homes after out of bank flows from the spillway eroded a large hole in the downstream face of the dam at Ulley Reservoir near Rotherham, have helped to raise public awareness that dams can pose a risk to the local community.
More positively, dams are increasingly serving more than the purpose they were originally designed for, being used for leisure facilities or adding hydropower to an existing dam for example. So, while new large dam construction projects are now rare — in the UK at least — many existing dams are being adapted and their use extended, which is helping to give them a new lease of life. The advance of technology has helped the modern dam engineer in many ways, from minor to major.
For example in a minor way, the ability to carry multiple site survey devices e. In a more meaningful way, the adoption of advanced real-time infrastructure monitoring with early warning alerts, or the adoption of drones to visually inspect dangerous or difficult to access areas of dams, can be of enormous help to the dam engineer.
Underpinning all of this though, I still believe that, along with the monitoring data and tools, there remains a critical role for data interpretation and visual inspection by an experienced dam engineer. I think there is still much more to do in terms of informing the public about the important role dams play in public safety, and the British Dam Society in the UK is already doing great work in this regard. Many dams are appreciated by the public for their contribution to the natural landscape, but unlike castles which no longer need to act as fortifications, dams must continue to fulfil their original engineering function of restraining huge volumes of water.
This has led to some lengthy and costly legal battles where local communities have opposed necessary safety upgrades to dams on the grounds that the visual amenity is being harmed, even though without them, residents living downstream would be left at risk if the changes were not implemented.
Butterley Reservoir, a listed structure in Derbyshire, is a good example of this. What has been the impact of retiring engineers and generational knowledge transfer? This is something we do need to be concerned about. The results of the surveys are, unfortunately, not surprising. This means we need to look at whether the replacement of new appointees is likely to be sufficient to maintain adequate Inspecting Engineer resources in the future.
There are many suggested causes for the predicted decline in senior dam engineers in the UK, including perception in the industry that the required experience demanded is no longer achievable due to the type of project roles typically available to aspiring engineers in a more globalised and consolidated civil engineering market.
One of the recommendations following the panel engineer surveys is that a formal mentoring programme be established for Supervising Panel Engineers to nurture and encourage them towards the most senior All Reservoirs Panel. Despite these issues, there is a bright future ahead for the role of the dam engineer in the UK. We have the opportunity to embrace exciting new technologies, to learn ever more about the behaviour of our dam structures, and to better manage and interpret the large volume of monitoring data now possible.
We need to strike the right balance between preserving our historic and beautiful dams while respecting their function, and ensuring they continue to serve, and not endanger the communities they were built to help.
I have been formally examining reservoirs as a Supervising Engineer for 30 years and inspecting reservoirs for more than 26 years. Owners have in general got better in obtaining information but on the other hand in the last 30 years there have been times, as organisations have gone through change with reductions in manpower and outsourcing of things such as surveys, where information has been impacted in a negative way.
Maintenance within the water companies seemed to decrease in quality in the later part of the last century as manpower reductions and outsourcing occurred but this has improved, reinforced by elements of maintenance now being enforceable with legislation. Certainly, the enforcement role of the regulator has improved which has aided the Inspecting Engineer in many ways including the keeping of records, and assisting in getting owners to be compliant.
We have gone through a period of legislation change with a move towards adopting a risk based approach and we now have in effect three different forms of legislation in England, Wales and Scotland, with a fourth coming in Ireland.
With more and more development downstream and advances in dam break analysis, we are seeing more re-categorisation of dams with regard to consequence of failure and resurgence in spillway enlargement and enhancement works.
This has led to a number of owners having to consider how to reduce their liabilities and hence, in my opinion, we will see an increasing number of schemes to discontinue reservoirs in the future. Many companies provide City and Guilds training courses for their operators as part of their licence to operate policy.
Since joining the All Reservoirs Panel more than 26 years ago, the number of All Reservoirs Panel Engineers has reduced from to 32, and the Supervising Engineers Panel from members down to about — a worrying trend. Training is often the first thing to be cut when finances are stretched but we are not doing enough to provide for knowledge transfer and succession planning as significant numbers of the baby boomer era retire. Unfortunately, many of those preparing for Panel Membership have not had the opportunities and training which many of my generation had and I feel that some of the judgement calls and pragmatism, which come from the older members of the Panels, will not come in the future.
There will be more people being very procedural and asking for calculations to base their decisions upon — a worrying prospect. His experience includes being Resident Engineer on the Symvoulos Dam in Cyprus from while he is currently overseeing a number of hydro projects, including the installation of hydro power plant at Grimwith Reservoir in Yorkshire and at a t a dam in the Lake District, plus the refurbishment of a hydro power plant and dam in Sri Lanka.
Over the past 20 years we have been seeing a growing need for constant change and improvement regarding the role of the dam engineer in China. Specifically, the lifelong responsibility has focused on the function and safety of the project. That means the dam engineer takes the responsibility of the project in its full lifetime cycle and will work through all phases of the development of a hydropower project: feasibility study, project proposal, basic design, monitoring and quality control, detailed design during construction, operation and maintenance, and even decommissioning of the project.
To meet these challenges and higher standards, more advanced technology has been utilised in the daily work of a dam engineer, such as 3D design and information technology, which is more efficient, more considerate with less mistakes. However, there are side effects of using such advanced technologies.
One skilful engineer may become less committed to conclusive suggestions possibly due to lack of engineering experiences. Over the past 20 years, there has been enormous innovation and development in information, construction equipment and materials such as the application of the roller-compacted concrete dam characterized with lower cement content, less heat and faster construction. With new technology and continuous development, a dam engineer will certainly continue to be an important evolving role.
Although dam safety has always been a critical goal for the dam engineer, modern dam safety programmes really came into effect in the s, particularly after the catastrophic failure of Teton Dam in in the US state of Idaho. These changes mainly relate to the following factors:. In the last 20 years, defensive measures to ensure the safety of dams have improved, such as filters for internal erosion protection, and corrosion protection in ground anchors.
Modern materials and technology have enabled faster and more economical construction, such as the use of roller-compacted concrete and high-technology construction plant.
Methods for analysing dams have also become more sophisticated with increased computing power and more advanced analysis software, in particular for extreme floods and non-linear analysis for seismic loading.
It is no longer acceptable for a dam safety engineer to rely only on visual inspection and monitoring data. Modern dam engineers need to understand the underlying design philosophy and keep up with the latest construction practices and their impacts on dam behaviour.
We also need to maintain an enhanced understanding of the performance of dam structures and appurtenance structures under various load conditions. Risk assessment now defines the dam surveillance scope and programme. In particular, the last 20 years have seen significant developments in analysis of failure modes and effects. Failure modes analysis, although initially used in risk assessments and the design of new dams and dam upgrades, is now the foundation of a risk-based dam safety and surveillance programme.
When assessing failure modes, the dam engineer needs to work alongside geologists and construction engineers to understand the impact of construction and to identify features that are not readily visible through visual inspections but could affect the safety of a dam, such as the foundation conditions that contributed to the spillway erosion at Orroville Dam in the US in The modern dam engineer has access to contemporary geotechnical and structural monitoring instruments, which are useful for interpreting the behaviour of a dam.
In recent years, electric instruments and automated data acquisition systems have enabled real-time monitoring of dams and near-continuous time history records for the dam engineer to evaluate. However, the collection, organisation, interpretation and presentation of such data can be a time-consuming challenge for dam owners and dam engineers. Often such data is stored in multiple locations and formats, or different types and models of instruments are used with varying methods of collecting data.
Also, the software used to collect and process the data may not be compatible. However, some technological advances do hold promise for streamlining the collection and storage of data, and are supporting the modern dam engineer to quickly identify issues or anomalies.
A number of data management systems are able to operate on mobile devices and allow for manually read and automated data to be synchronised into a single data management platform that can produce notification alarms, reports and charts. Some of these systems also allow uploading of field notes and photos.
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