26. June 2019
Dam breaches can have major consequences, and dam safety is therefore an important topic for dam owners, the authorities, consulting engineers and the research community.
“Failure mechanisms are one of the big areas of uncertainty when studying the consequences of a possible dam breach. A better understanding of the failure mechanisms that lead to dam breaches will therefore help us to study the consequences of possible dam breaches and also provide valuable information about how to avoid them in the first place”, says Geir Helge Kiplesund.
Wide-ranging expertise
Geir Helge Kiplesund has been employed at Multiconsult for 20 years, where he has worked in a wide range of areas, including hydropower planning, hydrology, hydraulics and dam safety. In recent years he has been the discipline leader for hydrological engineering. Now Kiplesund is embarking on a three-year PhD at the research centre HydroCen and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
His research will focus particularly on dam safety and failure mechanisms in embankment dams. His work will also partly be tied in to the research and development project being run by Energy Norway called “Dam Safety in a holistic perspective”, where, since 2016, Kiplesund has led the sub-project to develop better methods and data for classifying dams according to the consequences of a breach.
Since 2017, Multiconsult has been a partner in the HydroCen centre at NTNU. HydroCen is a research centre for green energy that aims to provide new knowledge and innovative solutions to the Norwegian hydroelectric power sector.
Read more about the research centre HydroCen.