A team of two students, Amanda Lukacs and Daniel Leal, designed a solution to rehabilitate the Honey Lake Dam in Princeton, NJ, which is currently operating at insufficient spillway capacity.
When Honey Lake Dam was constructed in 1964, it was designed for a 100-year storm, which was the design criterion at the time. Honey Lake Dam is classified as a High Hazard dam, meaning that during a hypothetical dam breach, there would be a possible loss of life downstream. Currently, all high hazard dams must be designed for the full Probable Maximum Flood (PMF). Subsequently, Honey Lake Dam must adhere to the current standards and provide a larger spillway capacity.
Lukas and Leal used sophisticated software to perform hydrology and hydraulic analysis for the current dam. This analysis enabled them to design appropriate overtopping protection that met the new PMF standard. The entire length of the dam, 1050 ft, would be covered with Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) blocks from the crest of the dam, to the downstream face of the dam. This enables the entire dam to act as a spillway during high intensity rain events.
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