Dams

Our reputation for innovation and quality engineering is built on more than 100 years of corporate experience in all types of dam safety assessments as well as the planning, design, and construction of new projects. We have the in-house, multidisciplinary expertise to handle all aspects of project development, including assessing and addressing considerations for environmental impacts, sustainability, and climate change.

We can draw on the skills and experience of an extensive and diverse staff of engineers and scientists in the implementation of conventional dams, hydroelectric dams, and water resource projects—particularly in our specializations in fill dams, concrete dams, and the more specialized roller-compacted concrete (RCC) dams. Our planning and detailed design work includes civil layout, geotechnical programs, stability analyses, remedial works, and data evaluation for instrumentation systems.

Fill Dams
Our team has consistently led the industry in the design of earth and rockfill dams, including specialty designs incorporating asphaltic cores or concrete-faced structures. At three separate times, Stantec has held the record for designing the world’s highest rockfill dam. We have the capabilities and experience for any dam-related project in any region of the world—having designed dam projects on six of the seven continents.

Stantec’s experience includes a full suite of regulatory compliance services, including Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Part 12 dam safety evaluations and potential failure mode analyses (PFMAs). One example included the design, evaluation, and rehabilitation of the 120-foot (36.5-metre) hydraulic, asphalt-lined embankment dam for the upper reservoir at the Seneca Pumped Storage project in Pennsylvania.

Concrete Dams
Stantec is one of the premier world-wide consulting engineering organizations in the planning, design, and construction management of concrete dams. Our team has designed more than 25 new concrete dams of differing types, including gravity, arch, buttress, arch-gravity, and roller-compacted concrete (RCC) dams with heights ranging from 46 to 984 feet (14 to more than 300 metres). One of our recent designs, the Tekeze Hydropower Project in Ethiopia, was named as the 2010 Best Renewable/Sustainable Project of the Year by Power Engineering magazine.

Roller-Compacted Concrete (RCC) Dams
The development of RCC as an alternate construction method for concrete dams offers many advantages over conventional designs. RCC dams offer opportunities for faster construction with simpler constructability (i.e. reduced forming and higher flexibility with concrete designs). The result? Shorter construction schedules and reduced costs. 

Stantec has prepared the design for more than 25 RCC dams and rehabilitation structures, including gravity, thick-arch, buttress, and embankment armoring dams with heights ranging from 45 to more than 980 feet (14 to 300 metres). One of our recent RCC projects is the Olivenhain Dam which, at 308 feet (94 metres), is the tallest RCC dam in the United States.