2024 Concrete Dam Foundations, between a Rock and a Hard Place, between Geology and Engineering Webinar

In many organizations, any issues dealing with rock foundations are handed off to the geologists, and engineers rarely get involved. Although geologists are an essential part of the evaluation team, some may lack the training and experience necessary to perform a complete evaluation of concrete dam foundations, which often requires knowledge of concepts typically covered in graduate level courses on rock mechanics.

This webinar provides an overview of the basic concepts required for evaluating concrete dam foundations from a rock mechanics perspective, including rock mass deformability, rock mass erodibility, interstitial water pressures, shear strength, and foundation rock block stability. In addition, several case histories of concrete dam foundation failures and incidents are reviewed to highlight the failure modes, and the importance of doing an adequate job of evaluating these types of risks. An in-depth case study of a roller-compacted concrete gravity dam foundation is also presented.

Gregg A Scott, P.E., F. ASCE

Scott Consulting, LLC

Mr. Scott received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He started his career with the Bureau of Reclamation in 1976, where he worked for 34 years before joining the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Risk Management Center as Lead Civil Engineer, where he worked through 2018. He has been involved with design, analysis, and construction of dams and dam safety projects, as well as the development and application of potential failure mode analysis and risk analysis for dam safety. He served on several review panels for Bureau of Reclamation and Corps of Engineers dam construction and dam safety projects. He has authored over 35 technical papers in journals and conference proceedings related to dam safety and dam engineering. He is now retired from Federal service, but continues to consult on a limited basis.