Monitoring and Assessment of the December, 2010 rapid drawdown on Montedoglio dam (Italy)

In the night between 29th and 30th December 2010 during the acceptance test of the reservoir an accident occurred to the main body of the Montedoglio earth dam, located in Sansepolcro, Tuscany (Italy). Using the HST Model, the study aims to assess the behaviour of the dam core during the rapid drawdown that follows the accident. The model is validated by using a finite element solver, passing through different steps. At first step it is necessary to use a simplified levee scheme and a simplified hydrograph of the reservoir level to determine the flow line with the solver. The flow line is compared with the one estimated with the application of Pavlovsky method to the same levee and this gives a first validation of the model used in the solver. This result allows using the real model of the levee and the real hydrograph of the reservoir level to find a second flow line. This line is compared with the real pore pressure measurements to obtain the validation of the solver model and then with the HST predicted values. The obtained results confirm the goodness of the adopted model for the involved phenomena.