How do you plug a burst dam?

Question

If a dam bursts and it’s flooding with water, how does it get repaired?

In: 4

Answer 1

It depends on the type of dam.
Earthen dams can add more material or compaction if the leak is small. Though likely if there is any flow through it will very soon lead to a [catastrophic failure](https://youtu.be/sKeQe7oc2gk) since the flow is also weakening the structure.

Bigger concrete dams generally don’t do like a “one chunk in the center flew out” type failure but will develop leaks before failing. Those are countered with grouting operations or lowering of the water line.

Though in many situations if a dam is burst, like properly flowing water through not just a few leaks, things have failed and repair likely won’t happen before downstream floods. There may be a bit of selection bias though since “dam gets properly repaired” doesn’t make as big of a headline as massive flooding.

[This channel covers a lot of when dams fail and explains what happened.](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeJkgZkJSc0Sl2kV2HUVrSDEOgHKT4un6)

Answer 2

It depends on the type of dam.
Earthen dams can add more material or compaction if the leak is small. Though likely if there is any flow through it will very soon lead to a [catastrophic failure](https://youtu.be/sKeQe7oc2gk) since the flow is also weakening the structure.

Bigger concrete dams generally don’t do like a “one chunk in the center flew out” type failure but will develop leaks before failing. Those are countered with grouting operations or lowering of the water line.

Though in many situations if a dam is burst, like properly flowing water through not just a few leaks, things have failed and repair likely won’t happen before downstream floods. There may be a bit of selection bias though since “dam gets properly repaired” doesn’t make as big of a headline as massive flooding.

[This channel covers a lot of when dams fail and explains what happened.](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeJkgZkJSc0Sl2kV2HUVrSDEOgHKT4un6)