Engineering and Technical

Water Retaining Structures and Small Dam Construction

A small dam that fails releases its water onto whoever is downstream, and small dams fail far more often than large ones because they are designed quickly, built by whoever is available and then never inspected again. This course takes them seriously. Delegates work through site selection, catchment yield and the spillway capacity that most failures trace back to. Embankment dams are covered in detail: zoning, core material, compaction control and the seepage control that decides whether a dam survives its first full supply. Concrete water retaining structures follow, including reservoirs and tanks, with crack control, waterstops and the watertightness testing they require. Outlet works, valves and low level draw off are addressed. Instrumentation and monitoring are covered, including seepage measurement and piezometers. Safety inspection regimes follow. Failure modes are worked through: overtopping, piping, slope instability and foundation seepage. The course closes on emergency preparedness and on the legal duties an owner carries.