Managing accidents and failures of hydraulic structures

Abstract

While the prior objective of hydraulic structures is to remain in service, engineers must also be capable to adequately handle their failures. This paper gives guidance on this issue based on the European (mainly Dutch) and American practice. The discussion begins with terminology agreements on “accident” and “calamity”, followed by the notes on risk analysis and life safety risks in particular. Identifying and reducing such risks is an issue of much broader scope than structural analysis. Once an accident happens, proper investigations, handling the losses and planning the repair become major goals. The paper discusses the choice between repair and replacement of a gate, illustrated by examples from the USA and the Netherlands The discussion has an engineering rather than statistical character. The authors believe that accidents are events of infrequent nature and very diverse consequences, difficult to capture in databases.