2006 – Instrumentation And Monitoring Of Kelag’s Dams

F. Neuschitzer

The paper describes the methodology, operative techniques and organizational aspects that are used for dam safety assessment procedures. Kelag owns 15 larger dams with wall heights up to 110 m. It is necessary to monitor the aging of the structures and to check all safety equipment regularly. The manned control centre is situated at the KELAG Headquarter in Klagenfurt, which is the capital of Austria’s southern-most Province, Carinthia. KELAG is the principal electricity supplier in Carinthia, and owns several reservoirs in the Austrian Alps. The whole hydropower system has a capacity of 434 MW with an annual production of 1000 GWh. During the last century KELAG employees designed, supervised and constructed most of the structures in cooperation with the authorities. Most of the rock-fill dams have a bituminous concrete sealing on the upstream face. KELAG owns one concrete arch dam with a height of 30 m. A pendulum monitors the movement of the dam crest. This information is transmitted to both the power house and the manned control centre in Klagenfurt. Seepage is monitored at all rock-fill dams. In case of an alarm a skilled engineer has to be informed by the staff of the manned control centre. This dam safety engineer starts to check the reasons on site and manages the emergency action plan. Data has been collected since 1998 and special software is used to handle this information, carry out interpretation and safety assessments. One aim of data collection is to develop a decision support system performing online evaluation, explanation and interpretation of dam behaviour. Normally, once a year geodetic measurements are carried out at all dams.

KELAG’s experience gained in the use of automatic monitoring and risk assessment of dams is covered in this paper. The monitoring systems show the state of the structures and those showing anomalous situations requiring human intervention can be identified as soon as possible. Although the repercussions of the free market system have led to substantial staff reductions, the quality of dam surveillance has had to remain unaffected. Dam safety is guaranteed by new types of instrumentation, data transmission and data assessment. A special software has to be updated constantly.

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