Case Study: Greenup Locks and Dam achieves long-term stability planning with Palisade's @RISK

Stability of the Ohio River Locks and Dam Determined Utilizing @RISK

Greenup Locks and Dam, operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers and a critical shipping chokepoint on the Ohio River, faced longstanding cracking in its lock monoliths that threatened future reliability and commerce. To determine when and where rehabilitation would be needed, the customer commissioned a stability study using Palisade’s @RISK to quantify the probability of unsatisfactory performance across a planning horizon to 2070.

Palisade’s @RISK enabled a Monte Carlo reliability analysis that modeled structural demand versus capacity with probabilistic inputs (concrete and steel strengths, soil parameters, anchor performance), using truncated distributions and named inputs for traceability. The study found cracked-and-anchored monoliths should remain serviceable through the planning horizon, cracked-but-not-anchored monoliths were predicted to fail in all years, and uncracked-unanchored monoliths showed rising failure probability—providing the USACE and Greenup Locks and Dam owners clear, quantitative guidance for targeted rehabilitation and continued safe operation.

Greenup Locks and Dam