Engineering Guidelines for the Evaluation of Hydropower Projects: Chapter 4- Embankment Dams
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 2004
The guidelines presented in this chapter provide staff engineers with recommended procedures and criteria to be used in reviewing and evaluating the safety of existing and proposed earth and rockfill (embankment)dams. The review performed by staff engineers will be conducted to ensure that all decisions, methods, and procedures performed by Iicensees/exemptees, or their consultants, are sound regarding damsafety, and to ensure that the Commission's Dam Safety Program objectives as stated in Part 12 of the Commission's Regulations are consistent with accepted, up-to-date state-of the-art
procedures (the term licensees also refers to applicants for license where appropriate).
The evaluation of safety of both new and existing embankment dams presents special and unique problems. Existing dams may prove difficult to analyze especially in those instances where the dam was designed before the development of modern design and construction technology or where adequate records are not available. Even for a relatively new dam where records are extensive, evaluation can be cumbersome for the following reasons: (a) various levels of completeness of records, (b) different site conditions, (c) varying degrees of quality in design and construction, and (d) differing depth of evaluation required for each dam.
Revision ID: 5862
Revision Date: 12/16/2022