Design Process of Hume Dam

The Hume Dam was designed to solve problems of irrigation, supply of water for industrial and domestic uses, generation of hydro-power, and mitigation of floods. The preliminary design included the construction of a concrete gravity dam and four earthen embankments. The detailed design included the investigation of 25 sites, the construction of a power station with a capacity of 58 MW, and the drilling of 158 test bores. The system test, validation, and optimization processes were carried out to ensure that the dam met the required standards. The evaluation showed that the dam was designed to meet all the objectives and goals for which it was constructed. The Hume Dam is a successful project that has lived up to expectations.

Running head: DESIGN PROCESS OF HUME DAM
DESIGN PROCESS OF HUME DAM
Name of the Student
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Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................2
Preliminary Design..............................................................................................................3
Detailed design....................................................................................................................6
System test, validation and optimization processes.............................................................7
Evaluation..........................................................................................................................10
Conclusion:........................................................................................................................13
Bibliography......................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
The Hume Dam was constructed after long deliberations had been made in regards to its
conceptual design. The design analyzed the construction process of the dam, its performance
measurement, systems planning, and the requirements of system operation, feasibility study as
well as the dam analysis. The Hume Dam was designed primarily for the reason of solving
problems of irrigation for people living along the Murray River (Guest 2017). There was the
need to bridge the gap that was created by the need of more than 1,417,188 mega liters of water.
In a wrap, the other reasons that prompted the designing of this dam also included supply of
water for industrial as well as industrial uses, irrigation uses, generation of hydro-power, and
mitigation of floods.
(Figure1: Hume Dam Image)
(Source: Banks and Czaplicki 2014))

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According to the Hume’s Dam functional analysis, it is clear that its construction and
design began in 1919 and included major components such as dam and spillways reservoir and
power station. This shows that the key operational needs or requirements for the project were the
Hume reservoir, dam and spillways as well as the power station. The Hume hydro-energy station
has a 58 megawatts capacity and is used for the generation of electricity in the peak-load period.
In terms of maintenance, there is the estimation of the result of extreme floods on the Hume
catchment (Haghshenas et al. 2016). There is a routine inspection of the Hume dam which in the
past has shown that leakage and water pressure leads to the slight movement of the dam on its
foundation thus bringing about anxiety among the people that the dam was headed to collapse.
The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the preliminary design as well as detailed
design phases of the Hume Dam. It is going to pay attention to system test, evaluation and
validation processes employed as well as any type of optimization that was required.
Preliminary Design
The preliminary design of the Hume dam has been well handled and all the contents of
such a plan taken into consideration. Firstly, the project has pointed out that the Hume Dam
obtained its name from Hamilton Hume who was an explorer upstream of Airbury in 1824. Its
design and construction started in 191 with the sole aim of supplying water as a way of
encouraging new settlements in the valley as well as bringing prosperity amongst the locals
(Banks and Czaplicki 2014)). The New South Wales (NSW) Department of public works
designed and constructed the concrete gravity which includes a 1.2 km earth-fill dam that had a
concrete core wall.

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(Figure2: Dam Water Gate Basics)
(Source : Banks and Czaplicki 2014) )
The initial design was undertaken by Dethridge Commissioner, State Rivers as well as
Water Supply Commission and Burgh Chief Engineer, Department of Public Works New South
Wales. The state was left with the responsibility of river Murray where a spillway that included 4
outlet valves and 3 future electricity generation valves was needed. Thousand tons sand and
rubble were drawn from tailings to make the concrete. They were obtained from railed from
mines of Chiltern valley and the crushing was carried out on site (Guyer, 2018). The wall
upstream filling was comprised of clay. The reason for this is that clay is impervious to water
and it performs just as well as a brick. There were158 test bores that were drilled to determine
the bedrock depth at different positions.

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(Figure 3: Identification of resource requirements)
(Source: )
According to the project, it has been pointed out that the Hume dam was designed to be
constructed using concrete gravity and four earthen embankments. 1615m crest was included in
the design with 51 m height (Wieland 2018). It had extra embankments that encompassed an
extra 1010m. Additionally, the optimal water depth was 40m, and this made it possible for the
dam to hold back at least 3005157 MG of water at a capacity of 100%. The Lake Hume

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catchment area is 15300 sq km. on the other hand, the Lake Hume surface area is 20190 ha.
There is a controlled concrete spillway and that has a gated concrete overflow. The overflow has
29 vertical undershot gates, with the ability of discharging7929m3 per second (Dolan 2016). In
this case, the water is restricted for about 40km on the reservoir in the Mitta and Murray rivers
valley.
Detailed design
The project on the Hume Dam conceptual design has taken into consideration the various
aspects that are usually needed in a detailed design. To start with, the Hume Dam had a system
planning that started with the investigation of 25 sites that were spread across the Cumberoona. It
has been shown in the project description and planning that there were 600000 acres that could
be impounded without the possibility of restricting the flow of River Mitta Water. The project
has been successful in capturing the issue of the Hume power station which was constructed as a
way to meet one of the project purposes (Tawfik 2016). In this power station, there is a capacity
of 58 MW. The station has 29 MW dual turbines that have an annual output of about 220 GW
every hour. This shows that in the process of providing the water needed for irrigation, power is
also available in large amounts and this is a good way to show that Hume dam has lived up to
expectations.
The project has, however, ran short of very crucial points that should always be taken
into consideration when laying down the detailed designed phase. For example, it has failed to
incorporate features such as outputs like 2D and 3 d models, cost build up estimates, and
procurement plans. The detailed plan is usually a fundamental necessity for manufacturers of raw
materials in such a way that it exists at the intersection of various product development processes

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(Haghshenas et al. 2017). Therefore, it would have been a wise step for the project to ensure that
it shortened the development lifecycle and also increase the complexity of the design itself in
order for the project to possess an immense pressure that would improve its entire design
process.
System test, validation and optimization processes
For any engineering design to be considered worthwhile there is always the need to test,
validate and optimize it. The reason for this is to make sure that the construction engineer, as
well as the authorities, has the reason to determine the final location for the construction of a
project such as a dam, with evidence being the tests that have already been carried on (Yi
(Wieland 2014)2015).Additionally, the process is important because the end product lives up to
the standards that were expected from the preliminary design process tot eh end product. In the
case of the Hume Dam, it is evident that the test standards that have been recommended for such
embankment dams have been followed. For example, parameters such as soil structure have been
considered.

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(Figure-4: Water level management)
(Source: Wieland 2014)
According to the project, there is an earthen embankment stretching for more than a
kilometer across the Victoria floodplain, and this is one way to test whether the ground is firm
enough to hold large volumes of water. The concrete that has been used to construct the Hume
dam was made from rubble and sand tailings that were railed from valley mines and crushed on
site. These steps were carried out in order to ensure that what was being constructed would stand
the test of time and also manage to achieve the purpose for what it was meant (Wieland 2014).
Additionally, it has been found out that the upstream wall was filled with clay because it is
usually impervious to water just like brick. The main aim of this was to ensure that the material
that was used would not be changed in the future, thus reducing the costs of maintenance.

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(Figure 5: Test System Evaluation)
(Source: Harris and Davidson 2015)
The project explains that there was the drilling of 158 test bores that were used to
ascertain the depth of the bedrock at different positions. In this respect, a final decision was
made by the New South Wales government on the site for the construction of the dam. It was
decided that the dam’s location would be beneath the junction of river Mitta. Several test bores
were drilled here.
Validation of the dam has been achieved through looking at its performance so far. The
Hume Dam performance validation has been established through the evaluation of the necessity
of the project to the community (Anderson 2015). The necessities include hydro-power
production, irrigation needs, supply of water for industrial as well as domestic purposes, plus
conservation of water. The Hume hydro-Power plant possess a 58 megawatts capacity and is

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generally utilized for production during perk-load. The power plant has dual 29 megawatts
turbines that have a yearly output of 220 GW/hr. The reservoir’s total capacity is 3036500 Mega
liters with respective active and inactive capacities of 1,417,188 ML and 1,619,312 ML
(Thomas, 2010).
In terms of optimization, it is clear that the project aims at proposing the idea that the
objective function of a rock fill dam such as the Hume dam is the non-linear design variables
functions. Therefore it is important to note that in the case of the Hume Dam, constraint
conditions can be said to be the implicit functions of design variables (McInnes and Miller
2017). The design optimization methods for the dam have focused on criterion methods
including the complex and penalty function methods.
The project has failed, however, to point out at some very crucial points that are involved
in the testing and validation processes. For instance, there has been no explanation of the manner
in which the embankment was tested before construction (Pedro, 2009). Though there were bores
that were tested, it is not clear how this testing was related directly the embankment that
happened later on during the actual dam construction.
Evaluation
The Hume Dam current design has been in line with what was initially planned by the
engineers. It followed the preliminary and detailed designs tot eh letter, therefore making sure
that there is no need for an alternative design. Evidently, there are various performance measures
that have been considered in the entire process of the construction of the dam. In regards to cost,
the quantitative requirement was a construction cost of 2.1 million pounds, a computing system
of 3.5 million dollars and a customer desire rate of 8%. The measure of capacity encompassed a

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spillway capacity of 7,929 cubic meters per second and a computing system that targeted a
spillage capacity of 8500m3/s and customer desires of 21% (Nathan et al. 2016). In the measure
of components, the quantitative requirements included the following:
 Dam and Spillage
 Reservoir
 Power Station
The computing system in this measure was a height of 51 meters, length 1,615 meters
and installed capacity 58MW with 32% customer desires. The quantitative requirement for the
measure of human factors was a less than 10% error rate per annum while the computing system
was less than 15% error rate per annum with a 6% customer desires.
(Figure 6: Evaluation methods)

12DESIGN PROCESS OF HUME DAM
(Source: Nathan et al. 2016)
The quantitative requirement for duration points out that construction began in 1919
while the opening date was 1936. Still, on the issue of duration, the computing system preferred
more upgrades to the dam that would commence in 2010 and end in 2015, with customer desires
of 20% (Reyes et al. 2015). Finally, the minimum rate of maintenance was 5 times per year
whereby monthly maintenance had 13% customer desires (Olden 2016). Generally, the
evaluation shows that the Hume dam was designed in a way that every aim and objective of its
construction would be met in time and with the required urgency. For example, the maintenance
that has been set at 5 times per year can be done on a monthly basis if at all there are concerns
that seem to be affecting the purpose of the dam.

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(Figure 7: System evaluation and corrective action loop)
(Source: Zabalza-Martínez et al. 2017 )
Conclusion:
Conclusively, the Hume Dam comes across as a project that was designed in line with all
engineering standards such that it can be able to achieve the goals and objectives for which it
was designed. The paper has pointed out the various phases that it was taken through in terms of

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preliminary and detailed and designs as well as some of the phases that were supposed to be
included but were missed. In the evaluation section, the performance measures, quantitative
requirements, computing systems and customer desires have been explored to make the project
simpler to understand.

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