ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: STOCHASTIC SIMULATION OF WOLF CREEK DAM OPERATIONS FOR USACE Thesis Directed By: Dr Gregory B. Baecher, Department of Civil Engineering and Environmental Engineering The Wolf Creek Dam situated on the Cumberland River in the state of Kentucky, United States is a multipurpose dam generating hydroelectricity, providing flood risk reduction, supporting year- round navigation on the lower Cumberland River, and it creating Lake Cumberland for recreation and water supply. The latter is a popular tourist attraction. Because of piping and internal erosion problems in the dam's foundation, it is a USACE top-priority structure. This thesis experiments with and tests the applicability of a stochastic simulation of the dam using historical inflow data based on a model built on GoldSim™. The model uses standard operating rules of the Dam to spot possible failures to the turbines that could affect the performance of the dam. In addition, the model simulates the behavior of the dam 50 years in to the future during which time the components reach their close to their maximum life. Results of the study suggest that simulation models of this type may serve to provide information for reliability-based maintenance strategies, and to help identify adverse patterns of dam performance which may be addressed through asset management. STOCHASTIC SIMULATION OF WOLF CREEK DAM OPERATIONS FOR USACE by Rahul Padmanabhan Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science 2019 Advisory Committee: Dr Gregory B. Baecher, Chair Dr Michelle Bensi Dr Allison Reilly © Copyright by Rahul Padmanabhan 2019 Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge various individuals who helped me with the completion of my Master’s Thesis. At first, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude my advisor Dr Gregory B. Baecher for his unwavering support throughout the span of two semesters when I worked under him. He provided me with proper guidance mentorship that allowed me to learn the depths of Reliability analysis of the Hydrological systems which has sparked my enthusiasm towards Risk analysis. I am also thankful to Dr Michelle Bensi and Dr Allison Reilly for accepting to be on committee. I would also like to extend my sincerest gratitude towards Robert Patev who played pivotal role in modelling the dam system. He provided me with crucial data that were extremely helpful in building the model. Additionally, he was kind enough to clarify every doubt I had regarding the working of the Wolf Creek. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude towards all my friends and family for their unconditional support that has allowed me to successfully complete my research. ii LIST OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Research Motivation ........................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Research Scope ................................................................................................................ 1 1.3 Thesis Overview ............................................................................................................... 2 2 Literature Review .................................................................................................................... 4 3 Wolf Creek Project .................................................................................................................. 6 3.1 Project Background .......................................................................................................... 6 3.2 Cumberland River ................................................................................................................. 8 4 Major Components of the Dam ............................................................................................. 10 4.1 Reservoir ........................................................................................................................ 10 4.2 Spillway Gates ................................................................................................................ 12 4.3 Turbine ........................................................................................................................... 12 5 Water Control Plan ................................................................................................................ 14 5.1 Primary Objective .......................................................................................................... 14 5.2 Inactive Pool ................................................................................................................... 14 5.3 Power Pool ..................................................................................................................... 14 5.4 Regulation Curve............................................................................................................ 16 5.5 Flood Control Pool ......................................................................................................... 16 5.6 Normal Regulation ......................................................................................................... 16 5.7 Flood Regulation ............................................................................................................ 16 5.8 Drought Regulation ........................................................................................................ 17 5.9 Wolf Creek Dam Operating Rules ................................................................................. 17 6 GOLDSIM Model .................................................................................................................. 19 6.1 Model Input Parameters, Data & Documentation .......................................................... 19 6.2 Reservoir System ............................................................................................................ 21 6.3 Reservoir Operating Conditions ..................................................................................... 21 6.3.1 Gate Opening Condition: ........................................................................................ 22 6.4 Power Generation Module ............................................................................................. 23 6.4.1 Turbine System ....................................................................................................... 25 iii 6.5 Grid Demands ................................................................................................................ 27 7 Results ................................................................................................................................... 28 8 Analysis and Interpretation .................................................................................................... 58 9 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 61 10 Future directions for this work ........................................................................................... 64 APPENDIX ................................................................................................................................... 65 References ..................................................................................................................................... 69 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Aerial view of Wolf Creek Dam ...................................................................................... 6 Figure 2. Cumberland River ........................................................................................................... 8 Figure 3. Hydroelectric System .................................................................................................... 10 Figure 4. Schematic Diagram of the Reservoir Levels ................................................................. 11 Figure 5. Francis Turbine .............................................................................................................. 13 Figure 6. Input Module ................................................................................................................. 20 Figure 7. Reservoir System ........................................................................................................... 21 Figure 8. Reservoir Operating Rules ............................................................................................. 22 Figure 9. Power Generation Module ............................................................................................. 23 Figure 10. Turbine System ............................................................................................................ 24 Figure 11. Turbine-1 ..................................................................................................................... 25 Figure 12. Fault Tree of turbine components ................................................................................ 25 Figure 13. Grid Demand Function ................................................................................................ 27 Figure 14. Inflow vs Outflow vs Pool elevation ........................................................................... 28 Figure 15. Elevations ...................................................................................................................