Today we present a story about Limitations, disclaimers and risks. The case related to limitations, disclaimers and risks. This is a case history on limitations, disclaimers and risks. Below is the summary of the case. Like all other consultants, we introduce in our reports verbiage clarifying our reports address specifically a project, a situation. Thus no one should generalize them to other operations, even if these may appear similar. In particular, the verbiage aims at protecting the client from the…
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Slope Failure definition is the second step of a slope risk assessment. The first step is, of course, system definition. It is indeed paramount to clearly state what is considered the success of the slope under consideration. Indeed, unless one clearly defines success, failure remains an ambiguous term (Adams, 2015). Generally we define the success of a slope as the fact that: it stands as built and does not afflict operations (traffic, ore recovery, business interruption, H&S). it features slow…
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ORE2_Tailings case history looks at a real tailings dam. It shows how to interpret ORE2_Tailings probabilities ranges predictions, benchmarks and other useful indications. Description of the real-life active tailings dam case history The case history is a 72.5m high dam with a modified centerline cross section. Construction has stopped, meaning there is no active deposition at this time. Therefore the dam is inactive. The dam stores tailings and a supernatant pond. It has a weir in fair state of…
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Mount Polley dam breach legal consequences will be heard for years to come. Imperial Metals (Vancouver, B.C., Canada), the owner of the breached dam, is reportedly suing the engineering companies Knight Piesold (KP) and Amec Foster Wheeler (AFW, formerly known as AMEC) for negligence and breach of contract over the August 2014 tailings dam failure at Mount Polley (B.C., Canada). The breach spilled 24Mm3 of tailings and water into nearby environment. Mount Polley dam breach legal consequences Reportedly Imperial Metals…
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Mount Polley Dam Breach: discussing Tailings Dam Failure Frequency and Portfolio Risk. Continued Mount Polley Dam Breach: discussing Tailings Dam Failure Frequency and Portfolio Risk. Continued. The mandate given to the expert panel forced them to consider all failures “equal”. Thus the risk equation became the simple expression of the probability of failure. We have discussed how tolerance and risk engineering would apply to large portfolios of dams and other critical infrastructures. We also expressed our opinion in the aftermath…
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Some Buzz-words and their meaning. Reliability A little bit of history and a couple definitions. There was a time where professors in good engineering schools around the world used to state that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Actually, most likely the Romans and many military engineers like Marechal de Vauban (who were also the first “serious” geotechnical engineers around ‘600-‘700, by the way) were also designing following that principle. The idea was: in a system…
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