Abstract: Dam safety requirements need to be improved to cover more than just meeting the available standards and criteria. Potential Failure Modes Analysis (PFMA) has currently emerged as an effective and popular approach for promoting dam safety management in the U.S.A. federal agencies have employed the PFMA methodology as a new, through tool for dam safety evaluation through a subjective and qualitative risk assessing approach. Potential failure modes (PFMs) and scenarios are identified and screened and their occurrence’s likelihoods and consequence are qualitatively estimated. The discovery and designation of PFMs and their categories are the result of an exhaustive engineering-based review, judgment and assessment of all available data/information about a project. A major advantage of the PFMA approach is the process itself which promotes creative and critical thinking by focusing on recognizing,discussing, and assessing PFMs and their caused consequences through an objective collective effort. Consequently, remedial measure can be determined as needed. The PFMA process is usually conducted in concert with the periodic independent consultant inspection, or conducted prior to a licensee’s proposed major remedial actions or as needed upon a dam’s defects that appear. The views expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of any federal agency of the U.S.A.

摘要： 大坝安全条件需要提高以满足现行的标准和规范。目前潜在损坏模式分析是提高美国大坝安全管理的有效工具。美国联邦机构通过主观风险分析途径将潜在损坏模式分析作为一个新的完整的大坝安全评估工具。该方法依赖以质量为依据的工程判断，根据收集的信息尽可能全面地评估可能的风险结果，确定潜在损坏模式和概况，并量化评估其发生的可能性和后果。作为一个结果，必要时可确定相应的补救措施，并及时加强目测检查和运行监测程序。