State-level Symposium on “Early detection of faults in river dykes, embankments, rockfills, gravity dams and proposed measures”

The Symposium is hosted to review the results of the State-level Project No. ĐTĐL.CN-04/16 with the same title presided by Assoc.Prof. Dr. Nguyễn Cảnh Thái, Vice President of TLU.

The Project has been implemented by TLU’s researchers in cooperation with Hydraulics Institute, Vietnam Academy on Water Resources since 2016 and is heading to the planned finalization in late 2020. With the aim of presenting the results and receiving feedback from high profile scientists for the improvement before the Project is completed, the Symposium is organized in two days with four sessions dedicated to each type of dykes and dams.

Dam safety problems are categotized into three types: (1) problems caused by faulty or below-the-bar construction of the dams; (2) problems caused by changed marginal conditions  in comparison with the initial design (eg. different hydrological flow, reduced upstream vegetation, sedimented reservoir); (3) problems that lead to downstream damage. This Project focuses on the first type of problems, targeting to find solutions to the dams themselves. The research subjects are the dykes and dams of Type III or above in 18 provinces from Quảng Ninh to Hà Tĩnh and existing in-dyke sluices, embankments, gravity dams and rockfills (new projects are not included).

The Project has two major objectives including developing the standardized science-based process for early fault detection and selecting optimal solutions suitable for the conditions in Vietnam.

In the first day of the Symposium, the Project team made presentations on the lessons learnt in designing and constructing concrete face rockfills in Vietnam, current status and measures to rehabilitate monitoring systems of rockfills, a few methods to detect the faults early and handle the risks of concrete face rockfills – case study on Cua Dat Reservoir among other topics.

During the discission, the Project team received plenty of positive evaluation, scientific feedback and experience exchanges from the experts and scientists. The Project documents on rockfills and gravity dams are to be reviewed and refined based on the valued comments.

The second day of the Symposium focusing on the embankments and river dykes will be held on 29 May at International Conference Center K1, Thuyloi Univerity.

A few photos of the Symposium:

Assoc.Prof. Nguyễn Cảnh Thái – The Project’s Team leader opened the Symposium

Dr. Hoàng Văn Thắng, President of VNCOLD and former Vice Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, shared his view on gate valve of the irrigation works

Assoc.Prof. Vũ Hoàng Hưng presented on the calculation process for safety standard data to monitor concrete dams

Mr. Nguyễn Tài Sơn shared his practical experience with large concrete dams in Son La and Lai Chau, Vietnam