Ensuring Seismic Safety: Gruner's Comprehensive Assessment of 53 Dams

Enel Green Power has mandated the Joint Venture Studio Speri – Gruner Stucky to perform the verification of the seismic safety of 53 dams, in the framework of the seismic safety assessment of strategic structures required by the Italian Ministry of Transportations and following the introduction of new rules for dam design and safety assessment.

The 53 large existing dams which are the object of the contract are located in the Alpine and Appennine Mountains, they have diverse structural types including concrete and masonry gravity structures, zoned earthfill and asphaltic concrete faced rockfill embankments, multiple-arch buttress dam. They vary from 12 m to 90 m of height.

In 2018 Gruner was awarded the first 3 Lots of 32 dams in Central-Southern Italy. An additional dam was assigned in 2019. A second Lot of 20 dams in Northern Italy was awarded in 2020.

The assignment consists of elaborating the seismic safety assessment for each of the various dams considering their specific characteristics. The service includes the collection and review of the historical data to the interpretation of monitoring, geological/geotechnical model definition, in-situ and laboratory testing on foundation and dam materials, site-specific seismic hazard, static and dynamic structural analyses and design of seismic retrofit.

For more information on Seismic Risk, please have a look at Technical note 3 of the Good Practise on Dam Safety

Back to overview