On some innovations in dam engineering

Production of renewable hydro-electrical energy and control of floods in large rivers are at present, and will be in the future, strong reasons to promote research concerning dam engineering problems. In Europe and in North America the main problems arise from the deterioration of many existing large dams and the consequent needs of structural diagnosis and restoration. In other areas, particularly in developing countries, design of new large dams exhibits crucial importance in view of its significant environmental and social implications and in view of the large amount of water still to be exploited on the planet (about six times the present quantity according to recent investigations). Listed below are some contributions to the solution of structural problems concerning concrete dams; these contributions are results achieved by our Milan team, within recent or in progress research projects. Details can be found in publications (recent or in preparation) referred to here below. Preceding results are outlined in [1]. The issues to be dealt with in the present survey belong primarily to computational mechanics and can be listed and briefly described as follows. (a) Several large concrete dams built decades ago are affected by Alcali Silica Reaction (ASR)