Australia is a dry continent, and water is becoming an increasing important natural resource. Dams are major pieces of infrastructure, vital for keeping the water flowing to growing urban areas. Increasing demand and improved hydrology data mean that these structures are constantly being upgraded.
Wivenhoe Dam, the main dam for the water supply of Brisbane, is currently undergoing modifications. Worley Advanced Analysis Group in Sydney has been awarded the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) work on the spillway structure of this dam, which was originally designed for a lower flood level. This project will involve modeling the shape of the valley upstream of the dam in three-dimensions using imported survey data. The dam and the training wall will then be modeled. A detailed “submodel” of the spillway and the downstream apron will then be prepared to analyse the local behavior in more detail.
The work on the Wivenhoe Dam spillway is in addition to the analytical work that the Advanced Analysis Group is currently doing on Hume dam, and on the flood and flow controls (drum and radial gates upgrade) on Warragamba dam. In the case of the Warragamba structure, we are exploring the feasibility of a “world first” in the form of a seismic isolator which will increase the chance of radial gates surviving a major earthquake. And in a parallel study, both finite element and CFD analyses are utilized to truly capture the water-gate interaction during an earthquake event.
