Detailed l'Aquila report

[dgillette]

Detailed report available for download. Some interesting stuff in it on landslides and old masonry. No reports of damage to dams.

http://casehistories.geoengineer.org/volume/volume1/issue4/IJGCH_1_4_1.html

Those of you who also follow Seismology Engineering (moe333 perhaps), please pardon the cross-post.

 

[Mccoy]

That's a really exaustive report on damage, the cited concrete dams are located not very close to the epicentre so they allegedly were not damaged, although the electrical society owning the big concrete dam (Rio Fucino), the one near L'aquila, has been secretive about it.

It may that some minor damage was incurred and not publicized, since population downstream were literally freaking out.

 

[dgillette]

Hello McCoy. If you ever hear anything more about Rio Fucino, I'm VERY interested to hear it also, either here or by carrier pigeon if you prefer (or by owl, if you have ever read Harry Potter to your children). On Tuesday, I gave a lecture on dams and earthquakes to a group of engineers, mostly visiting from other countries, and I was not able to give them many examples of concrete dams with bad performance.

Best regards,
DRG

 

[Mccoy]

dgillette, 'm going to enquire, there was a discussion about that with other Italian geologists in the aftermath of the earthquake, see if I'm able to find out updated info.

 

[Mccoy]

So far I didn't come up with much.

Present situation is as follows:

3 dams in the Campotosto lake:
-Sella Pedicate Height=26.50 meters concrete dam
-Rio Fucino Height =49 meters concrete dam
-Poggio Cancelli Height =28.2 meters earth dam

'No visual evidence of damage is reported due to the earthquake', that's the very brief description released by the owner.

There is one article in a proceedings volume:

http://www2.ogs.trieste.it/gngts/gngts/documenti/pdf2009/2.3.pdf

you can find it by the keyword: ‘Campotosto’

There are a couple of references on damaged dams in Turkey and China,, you probably know them but I'll paste the links here anyway:

http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/10/979/2010/nhess-10-979-2010.pdf

http://www.waterpowermagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=2050654

A recent survey led by inside geologists employed by the Rio Fucino dam owner highlighted that the quaternary fault known to run near the dam is actually at a distance of 900 feet.

Fact is that, the geologist who is the recognized expert in quaternary faults in that area and the local geologist who raised the issue of a likely active fault underneath or in the vicinities of the dam have not been called into the investigation, nor given a detailed report.