Teera Srital-on, Chris Kuenne
Six spillway radial gates were retrofitted into the spillway at the 1965-built Callide Dam in 1988. These gates are designed to operate in pairs, and are equipped with an automatic actuation system, controlled by the water level within variable counterweight chambers.
During past flood operations, the radial gates encountered vibrations leading to damage. To address this issue, a detailed analysis of vibration and fatigue was conducted, resulting in the design
and implementation of optimal rectification measures to enhance the gates’ resilience against prolonged vibration exposure. The gate actuation system also required an upgrade to allow the gates to operate on demand as needed and move past specific vibration-prone zones as fast as practical.
Given the criticality of gate operation, particularly in minimising exposure in the vibration-prone zones, a robust gate actuation system was imperative. Sunwater integrated multiple redundancies into various components of the actuation system, including three types of power supply, five methods for filling the variable counterweight chambers, and numerous back-up pipes and interconnections. This meticulous design significantly increases the reliability of the gate operation.
To verify the reliability of spillway gate operations, a comprehensive assessment was undertaken using Fault Tree Analysis (FTA). The complexity of the system necessitated a meticulous approach
in developing fault trees. A number of sub-trees, logic gates, events, and crucially, identification of common causes of failures were required. The result of the reliability assessment demonstrates the robustness of the Callide Dam gate actuation and control system, affirming its high reliability in operation.
This paper offers a summary of the past gate vibration assessment and upgrade works. It also presents an insight into this unique gate actuation system and how the improvement was undertaken
to make its operation robust and ‘bulletproof’. Results of the fault tree analyses are also presented. Some features of fault tree analysis methodology for gate reliability assessment are also presented and discussed.
$15.00
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