Dam failure parameters

I have two questions regarding the actual failure of a dam:

How would equations (4) and (5) on page 6-16 look in SI units (i.e. m, m^3 etc)?

Is "hd" in those equations the value where the dam starts to fail? If, for example, I have assumed that the failure starts when the water level is 1 m above the dam crest, then "hd" would be: "the distance from the breach bottom to the dam crest +1".

Is this correct?

Thank You in advance!
Erik Johansson, SMHI,Sweden
erik.johansson@smhi.se

>How would equations (4) and (5) on page 6-16 look in SI units (i.e. m, m^3 etc)?

DAMBRK performs all of its analysis in English units and then converts the results to metric. Therefore, it is necessary for use to convert the metric input to English units as well.

>Is "hd" in those equations the value where the dam starts to fail? If, for example, I have assumed that the failure starts when the water level is 1 m above the dam crest, then "hd" would be:"the distance from the breach bottom to the dam crest +1". Is this correct?

Note that these equations are from another person's work (MacDonald and Langridge-Monopolis [1984] and Frolich [1987]). I cannot find the original work anymore, but I would assume that you are correct.

Sincerely,

Chris E. Maeder, M.S.
Senior Technical Engineer
chrism@bossintl.com