On the Reliability--Based Safety Analysis of the Porsuk Dam

Dams are large hydraulic structures constructed to meet various project demands. Their roles in both the environment and the economy of a country are so important that their design and construction should be carried out with a negligibly small risk. Conventional design approaches are deterministic, which ignore variations in the governing variables. To offset this limitation, high safety factors are considered that increase the cost of the structure. Reliability-based design approaches are probabilistic in nature since possible sources of uncertainties associated with the variables are identified using statistical information, which is incorporated into the reliability models. Risk analysis with the integration of risk management and risk assessment is a growing trend in dam safety assessment. This study deals with the probabilistic evaluation of safety of gravity dams. A computer program based on the probabilistic treatment of random loading and resistance terms will be used for the safety analysis. A case study is conducted to illustrate the use of this program.