Core wall rockfill dams are susceptible to cracking at the dam’s crest, as well as collapse and settlement of the rockfill during storage and operation periods, particularly due to rapid fluctuations in the water level in pumped storage power stations. Most studies on the impact of fluctuations in the reservoir’s water level on dam deformation have considered fluctuations of less than 5 m/d, while pumped storage power stations experience much larger fluctuations. Additionally, the seepage and stress fields within the dam’s rock and soil interact and influence each other. Few studies have used the coupling theory of seepage and stress to analyze seepage and deformation in core wall rockfill dams. To address these issues, a finite element model using seepage–stress coupling theory was utilized to investigate the variations in the phreatic line, earth pressure, and deformation of a core wall rockfill dam due to rapid fluctuations in the reservoir’s water level. Additionally, the results of the finite element simulation were compared with and analyzed alongside safety monitoring data. The results indicated that, upon a sudden decrease in the reservoir’s water level, there was a lag in the decline of the phreatic line in Rockfill I, which created a large hydraulic gradient, resulting in a reverse seepage field on the dam’s slope surface and generating a drag force directed upstream. Consequently, a significant concentration of stress occurred on one-third of the upstream slope surface of the dam and the seepage curtain, and the increase in horizontal displacement was substantially greater than the increase in settlement from one-third of the rockfill’s height to the dam’s foundation. The deformation was more sensitive to the lowest water level of the reservoir rather than to the fastest rate of decline. Sudden rises in the reservoir’s water level result in decreased horizontal displacements and settlement of the dam. Amid rapid fluctuations of the reservoir’s water level, changes in the vertical earth pressure were more pronounced at the bottom of the core wall than in its midsection. Compared with the core wall, variations in the vertical earth pressure in the upstream and downstream filter layers were minor at similar elevations. A peak horizontal displacement of 6.5 mm was noted at one-third the height of Rockfill I, with the greatest increase in settlement of 3.5 mm at the dam’s crest. To ensure a project’s safety, it is crucial to control the elevation of the lowest point during a sudden drop in the reservoir’s level and to carefully monitor for cracks or voids within approximately one-third of the dam’s height in Rockfill I and at the dam crest. This study’s results provide a scientific basis for assessing core wall rockfill dams’ health and securing long-term safety at pumped storage power facilities.

This paper uses both fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) and the cross entropy of interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets on risk identification of dams. The problem of risk identification can be transformed into a multi-criteria decision-making problem under fuzzy environment. Based on the weight of criteria calculated by the FAHP method and the interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy information of risk aggregated by geometric average operator, the weight of each alternative can be obtained. The proposed method is used to identify the main risk factors of an earth–rock dam and to rank potential failure modes of the dam. The proposed method takes into account the interval unknown degree (hesitancy degree) in dam safety assessment and it is more effective and accurate in real conditions of dam operation.

Crack is one of the major manifestations of damages on concrete dam, and studies on the safe-monitoring model of concrete dam cracks have always been a focus in dam safety monitoring field. Currently, the corresponding diagnostic methods and the criteria belong to post hoc test (diagnosis) category. But in practice, it is also concerned in the cracking abnormality diagnosis of concrete dam that whether the cracking abnormality will occur in its current state, and whether the original crack safety monitoring model is still appropriate in its current state. This chapter focuses on reflecting different states of cracks abnormality by studying the structural stability of the linear regression model in concrete dam cracks; the main idea is based on the steady state of the regression coefficients in the model to reflect crack abnormal states. Thus, online diagnostic of the concrete dam cracks abnormality corresponds statistically to the model of structural stability (changeable points) or to the problem of online monitoring sequential detection problem. In this paper, the author does different considerations on the concrete dam cracks transformation characteristic, constructs the appropriate online diagnostic methods and criteria, and takes a project as an example to analyse and to verify its established criteria and methods.