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Young Entura engineer Sammy Gibbs wins award at national dams conference

18 November, 2024

Entura congratulates civil engineer Sammy Gibbs, who has won the Young Professional Best Paper award at ANCOLD 2024.

Sammy presented her paper, ‘Integrating emergency response actions into an RMC-LifeSim potential loss of life assessment’, in Adelaide during the ANCOLD conference, which ran from 11 to 14 November with the theme ‘Never the Same Dam Twice’.

Sammy explained that for practitioners and stakeholders it is important to have confidence in the estimate of the number of fatalities that could result from dam failure. This is carried out in a ‘potential loss of life’ (PLL) assessment, which may be undertaken using simulation models, such as RMC-LifeSim. The resultant PLL estimate is then used in assessments that inform significant financial decisions for dam owners, such as dam design, surveillance programs, major upgrades or decommissioning.

Sammy’s paper used a case study to demonstrate how emergency response information, obtained by collaborating with the dam owner, local council, local regulator, police and state emergency service, informed the RMC-LifeSim model inputs so that the model represented the local emergency response plan and likely PLL.

“The overall objective of the paper is to encourage practitioners to collaborate with local stakeholders and emergency response authorities when undertaking detailed PLL assessments as each community and emergency response is unique. Representative and realistic evacuation simulation models require the incorporation of local knowledge,” she said.

Sammy said that it was a pleasure to share the topic with such an engaged audience and to receive so many positive responses. “It’s been great to see so much interest in emergency response and how it informs engineering assessments,” she said.

Dr Amanda Ashworth, Entura’s Managing Director, said she was very proud to see Sammy recognised at the prestigious annual industry event for dam engineering and safety.

“Sammy is a greatly valued member of Entura’s dams team, and her work in flood studies, impact assessments, dam design and dam surveillance is making significant contributions to the safety and resilience of many communities in Tasmania,” she said. “Sharing her knowledge in a national forum is a powerful way to build a stronger industry and safer communities across Australia and beyond.”

The paper was co-authored by Entura’s Senior Principal (Dams and Headworks) Paul Southcott and Specialist Civil Engineer Craig Ludlow.