Location
Chicago, Illinois
Date
02 May 2013, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Abstract
Addicks and Barker Dams are two flood risk management structures owned and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and recently classified as extremely high risk. These dams were built in the 1940’s in west Houston, Texas, upstream of a densely populated metropolitan area. The dams consist of 11 and 13 miles of rolled earth embankments, outlet structures with five barrel conduits, and uncontrolled spillways at both ends of both dams. The original design of both dams provided for four of the five outlet conduit barrels to be ungated, permitting a combined uncontrolled discharge from both dams of 15,700 cubic feet per second into Buffalo Bayou. Due to urban development throughout the 1940s and 50s, all conduit barrels of both dams were gated by 1963 to allow restricted discharge flows into Buffalo Bayou during normal operating conditions. These fundamental changes in operations together with the existence of erodible fine sand and silt foundation soil conditions led to the initiation of several potential failure modes at the outlet structures. These have been recently confirmed by the findings of voids beneath the conduits in both dams. Interim measures have temporarily stopped progression of the failures. This paper’s presentation mainly focuses on the history and issue evaluations of the outlet structures of these dams and the interim measures and long term solutions under consideration for reducing risks associated with these critical infrastructures.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
7th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2013 Missouri University of Science and Technology, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Chow, Gary S.; Thomas, Lori K.; and Walker, Willis, "High-Risk Flood Control Dams on Difficult Soil Foundations" (2013). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 50.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/7icchge/session03/50
High-Risk Flood Control Dams on Difficult Soil Foundations
Chicago, Illinois
Addicks and Barker Dams are two flood risk management structures owned and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and recently classified as extremely high risk. These dams were built in the 1940’s in west Houston, Texas, upstream of a densely populated metropolitan area. The dams consist of 11 and 13 miles of rolled earth embankments, outlet structures with five barrel conduits, and uncontrolled spillways at both ends of both dams. The original design of both dams provided for four of the five outlet conduit barrels to be ungated, permitting a combined uncontrolled discharge from both dams of 15,700 cubic feet per second into Buffalo Bayou. Due to urban development throughout the 1940s and 50s, all conduit barrels of both dams were gated by 1963 to allow restricted discharge flows into Buffalo Bayou during normal operating conditions. These fundamental changes in operations together with the existence of erodible fine sand and silt foundation soil conditions led to the initiation of several potential failure modes at the outlet structures. These have been recently confirmed by the findings of voids beneath the conduits in both dams. Interim measures have temporarily stopped progression of the failures. This paper’s presentation mainly focuses on the history and issue evaluations of the outlet structures of these dams and the interim measures and long term solutions under consideration for reducing risks associated with these critical infrastructures.
