Monitoring Of Arch Dams

The design procedure for arch dams is well established and involves extensive analytical and model studies in which many simplifying assumptions are made to enable the real and complex structure to be treated as a mathematical or structural model. Despite these simplifications, there is substantial evidence indicating that the design methods used result in structures whose stresses and deflections agree well with calculated values. The evidence have been obtained by extensive instrumentation and observation on a number of dams with varying valley shape and foundation conditions, the results showing clearly that reasonable agreement exists between prototype behaviour and that predicted in the design. Most of the important contributions in this field have come from the United States Bureau of Reclamation (U.S.B.R.), the Laboratorio Nacionalde Engenharia Civil (L.N.E.C.), Portugal, and the Instituto Sperimentale Modelli E Strutture (I.S.M.E.S.), Italy.

In view of this advanced state of the art it is considered that instrumentation to check in detail the stressed state of the dam is not warranted in the case of a structure whose size in well within the limit of international experience. Not only are such studies costly involving as they must complementary studies of the elastic, creep and shrinkage properties of the corporate but considerable resources are required for their proper and thorough execution.