McBreach

Where Science Meets Nature

Faced with aging infrastructure, limited resources, dynamic weather events, and the uncertainty of climate change, today’s dam owners must manage risk to protect the lives of the public and our built environment – they need smart planning tools to reduce these risks. You can now leverage the power of HEC-RAS through Monte Carlo simulations to quantify uncertainty and inform better decision making BEFORE an event!

McBreach addresses these risks by

  • Getting beyond traditional deterministic dam breach approaches by applying probabilistic theory
  • Creating dam breach outputs that correlate breach discharges with probabilities of occurrence
  • Leveraging the power of HEC RAS in a Monte Carlo environment to inform better decision making – BEFORE an event!

How it works

Kleinschmidt’s proprietary McBreach© software controls HEC-RAS and automates the process of batch mode simulations and random breach parameter sampling about defined statistical distributions.  McBreach© provides probabilities of dam breach hydrographs, given a dam failure, using a Monte Carlo approach.

Key Features of McBreach©

  • Free software!
  • Intuitive user interface
  • Compatible with HEC RAS version 5.0.7
  • 10 breach parameters with user selected sampling modes and a full suite of distribution functions
  • User defined sample size provides runtime flexibility balanced with robust statistical performance
  • Built in plots and tables for quick and easy interpretation and presentation of results
  • Support probabilistic simulation of the inflow hydrograph using peak and duration scaling
  • Supports Risk Informed Decision Making

“In support of risk informed decision making, a probabilistic approach to dam breach modeling may be considered.”

-FERC RIDM Guidance Chapter R-21.

Putting McBreach© to Work

Getting Started

  • Ensure you have a working version of HEC RAS version 5.0.7 installed on the computer where you want to download and run McBreach
  • Download and install McBreach – Click on the McBreach icon to the right to install.
  • Download the install package. Double click to install.
  • Review and accept the User Agreement terms
  • Open McBreach
  • A User’s Manual and sample projects are available to help you get started

Check out the recent article on McBreach in the USSD Bulletin by clicking the image below:

For additional support, contact us at [email protected]