Reservoir Design and

Operation
IMPROVEMENTS OF FOUNDATION AND
RESERVOIR AREA
FOUNDATION IMPROVEMENT

• The foundations of main dam through river valley and

abutments are required to withstand dead/dynamic
loads with minimum seepage.

• Treatment of foundations and abutment is done to

improve their competency and to reduce or eliminate
subsurface seepage.
Stripping
• The top few meters of rock surface are most affected by
weathering and development of fractures, faults etc. inclined
slippage planes.

• The fractured part of the rock foundation is stripped off to reach a

hard competent rock for concrete dams; this may not be needed
for earthfil or rockfill dams.

Replacement of Weak Layers

• Weak inclined layers/beds of shale and other materials do not
provide good foundation.

• These layers if few and thin, may be excavated and space filled up
by strong concrete.
Grouting
• Grouting is a process of filling the discontinuities and void
spaces of underground channels in rock with a sealant.

• Grout is a liquid, either a uniform chemical substance or an

aqueous suspension of solids, that is injected into rocks or
unconsolidated materials through specially drilled bore holes
to reduce or eliminate seepage flow paths of water beneath
the dam structure.

• Grout include:
• Portland cement based slurries,
• chemical grouting solutions, and
• organic resins, epoxy/polymers.
Three kinds of grouting programs are identified.
• Comparatively shallow systematic ‘blanket’ or consolidation
grouting over critical portions of the foundation.

• Deep curtain grouting from a gallery or concrete grout cap along

a specified location e.g. dam axis, to produce deep impermeable
barrier to subsurface groundwater seepage.

• Off-pattern special purpose grouting to improve strength and/or

overcome problems created by groundwater circulation.

• Grouting help to close channel ways, and thus reduce seepage

considerably. Small inaccuracies may allow some seepage past
the curtain, however, thus seepage can be taken care of by
installing drainage wells.
 IMPROVEMENT OF ABUTMENTS
AND RESERVOIR AREA
• The weakness of abutments in terms of rock surface
disintegration and falling over may be improved by

• Dental work – the open rock joints are cleaned and filled with
concrete or some other filler;

• Scaling – the loose rock masses over the abutments and

reservoir rim are removed to exposed lower lying hard and
stable surface, thus future danger is reduced.
 GROUTING
Curtain Grouting
• This is grouting done along a single selected axis (e.g., below core, below
concrete slab of rockfill dam, below heel of concrete dam, etc.) to form a
seepage curtain below the dam.

• Curtain grouting before dam construction for E/F, R/F dams.

• Performed from a grout cap. The grout cap is made of concrete by filling a
shallow, narrow excavated trench in the foundation/cut of trench.

• May be done after dam completed from u/s heel of a dam.

• Construction after dam completion most effective when full load of dam is
being exerted on the foundation. Thus, higher grouting pressures may be
used to assure maximum filling of voids and sealing off of flow channels.
• For concrete dams, a gallery is left in dam body from where grouting
and drainage wells may be installed after dam completion.

• Depth of grouting: For completely described geology = 1/3 of dam

height + 50 ft. For unknown or highly variable geology = dam height.

• For unknown geological conditions, depth as may be needed to plug

off seepage.

• Grout spacing commonly 10 ft apart.

• A pre-determined closure pattern followed.

• Holes may be vertical or inclined

 Blanket Grouting
• Blanket grout holes are shallower 20-30 ft.

• Intended to remedy flows in the foundation over a

larger area.

• Holes normal to foundation

• Blanket grouting completed before construction of

dam.
Schematic layout of Curtin and blanket grouting of rock foundation of an earthfill
dam. A: Plan, B: Section showing formation depth for curtain grout holes
Grout curtain used on the abutment.
Hydrological Investigations

Objectives:

In hydrological investigations following activities are carried

out

 To find runoff pattern for designing the capacity of the

reservoir
 To find the hydrograph of worst flood for capacity of
spillway
Dependable Yield
 Agricultural water requirements are enormous, and all river flows may not
satisfy these demand.

 Therefore, a scale of demand must be selected such that the design demand
must be met adequately in most years.

 Else the scale of infrastructure development will remain underutilized for

large proportion of time.

 Since actual flows of river can vary considerably over the days and may not
be utilized without a storage dam of suitable capacity.

 The dependable yield sets the maximum usable potential of water from the
river system.

 Thus, the project demand is tailored to match the dependable yield.

Computing the Design or Dependable
Catchment Yield

 The rainfall data of past years is used to work out the

dependable rainfall value corresponding to given
dependability percentage “p”.
 The yearly rainfall data of the reservoir catchment is
generally used for this purpose, since such long runoff data
is rarely available.
 This dependable rainfall value is then converted into the
dependable runoff value by using the available empirical
formulas connecting the yearly rainfall with the yearly
runoff.
procedure to compute the dependable rainfall value for a
given dependable percentage “p”

 The available rainfall data of the past N-years is arranged in descending order
of magnitude.
The order number for a pre-selected dependability P% is given by
 

Where
N = Number of years for which rainfall data is available; P = dependability
percentage in (%)

a. The rainfall value corresponding to this order number in the tabulated data
will represent the required dependable rainfall.

b. If the computed value of ‘m’ is a fraction the A.M of the rainfall value
corresponding to the whole number ‘m’ value above and below this fraction
is taken as dependable rainfall value.
Example: The yearly rainfall data for a catchment of a proposed reservoir site
for 35 years is given in table below. Compute from this data, the values of
dependable rainfalls for 60% and 75% dependability percentage.
Example: The daily flows in a river for three consecutive years are given
in the table below by class interval along with the number of days the flow
belonged to this class. What are the 50% and 75% dependable flows (annual
and daily) for the river?
Converting the dependable rainfall value into the dependable yield
Example:
The design annual rainfall for the catchment of a proposed reservoir
has been computed to be 99 cm. The catchment area has been
estimated to have the mean annual temp of 20˚C. The catchment area
contribution to the proposed reservoir is 1000 sq km. calculate the
annual design catchment for this reservoir. Make use of Khosla’s
formula.
Fixing the Reservoir Capacity Using the
Dependable Yield
 After deciding the dependable yield for the proposed reservoir, the reservoir
capacity is decided as follows:
 Determine the water demand.
 Calculate the losses @ 15 % of the water demand.
 Calculate the live storage of reservoir = water demand + 15% losses
 Calculate the gross storage of reservoir = live storage + Dead storage
 Gross storage will give the reservoir capacity, but, reservoir capacity con not exceed the
demand and the catchment yield.
 Lesser of the values of above factor, i.e., inflows and outflows will be the reservoir capacity.
OR Reservoir capacity is fixed at a value which is lesser of :
 Assessed gross storage to meet the demand (outflow).
 Assessed catchment yield (inflow).

 After getting the capacity of reservoir, full reservoir level (FRL) can be obtained
from capacity-elevation curve of the site.
How to calculate the Dead Storage?

• Dead storage required in the computation is usually

fixed at higher value of the followings:
• 
• Dead storage = (rate of silting) x (life of reservoir)
• Dead storage = 10% of gross storage or net water
demand
• Dead storage = FSL of the off taking canal
Flow Duration Curve
 A flow duration curve is a curve plotted between stream flows (Q)
and the percent of time the flow is equaled or exceeded (Pp).
 A flow-duration curve represents the cumulative frequency
distribution and can be considered to represent the streamflow
variation of an average year.
Procedure:
 Arrange annual flow volume data of N years in descending order
 Assign serial number n (n = 1 to N)
 Dependability (p%) of ‘n’th discharge event = n/(N+1) * 100
 For pre-selected dependability P%, find mth value where m = (N+1) *
P/100. Read the mth flow value and is P% dependable yield of the
river.
 Flow duration curve on an
ordinary paper

Flow duration curve on a

log-log paper
Example
The monthly inflow into the Kurram Tangi dam is given in table draw the Flow
Duration Curve.
 Golen Gol Hydro Power Project
Flow Duration Curve (1993-2006)
100
95
90 Av 93-06
85 1993
80 1995
75 2004
70
65
Discharge (m3/sec)

60
55
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
Exceedence Time (%)
Characteristics of Flow Duration Curve
 The slope of the flow-duration curve depends upon the
interval of data used. Say for example, a daily stream flow
data gives a steeper curve than a curve based on monthly
data for the same river. This happens due to smoothening
of small peaks in monthly data.

 The presence of a reservoir on a stream upstream of the

gauging point will modify the flow-duration curve for the
stream, depending upon the reservoir regulation effect on
the released discharges.

 The flow-duration curve, when plotted on a log

probability paper, is found to be a straight line at least
over the central region from this property.
Reservoir regulation effect on the flow-duration curve of a stream paper
• FDC on a log-log paper is useful in comparing the flow characteristics
of different streams. Say for example, a steep slope of the curve
indicates a stream with a highly variable discharge; while a flat slope
of the curve indicates a small variability of flow and also a slow
response of the catchment to the rainfall.

• A flat portion on the upper end of the curve is typical of river basins
having large flood plains, and of rivers having larger snowfall during a
wet season.

• The chronological sequence of occurrence of the flow gets hidden in

a flow duration curve. A discharge of say 500 m 3/s in a stream will,
thus, have the same percentage probability (Pp), irrespective of
whether it occurred in January or June.

• This aspect, a serious handicap of such curves, must be kept in mind

while interpreting a flow- duration curve.
Uses of Flow Duration Curve
 For evaluating dependable flows of various percentages,
such as, 100%, 75%, 60% etc. in the planning of water-
resources engineering projects.
 In evaluating the characteristics of the hydropower
potential of a river.
 In comparing the adjacent catchments with a view to
extend the stream flow data.
 In the design of drainage system.
 In flood control studies.