Dams are important large structures providing vital benefits to human life. These strategic structures are necessary in order to supply water and energy and to control floods. Moreover, dams have important roles in regional development and national economy. Thus, the design of dams deserves rigorous studies. Deterministic approach may be acceptable for design of dams and may satisfy safety requirements if large safety factors are used. However, such an approach will not be cost-effective in economic terms. High safety factors utilized in deterministic approaches necessitates large dimensions. One remedy for this overestimation is integrating statistical information and techniques, such as Monte-Carlo simulations into the analysis and design of dams. Probabilistic approaches may result in more economical and reasonable designs. CADAM is a software program which allows the user to analyze dams using Monte-Carlo simulation technique. Uncertainties associated with tensile strength, peak cohesion, peak friction coefficient, normal upstream reservoir elevation, drain efficiency and horizontal peak ground acceleration are incorporated into stability and stress analysis using Monte-Carlo simulations. In this thesis, utilization of CADAM software is demonstrated on a case study. Cindere dam is evaluated in terms of structural safety

Dams are large hydraulic structures constructed to meet various project demands. Their roles in both environment and the economy of a country are so important that their design and construction should be carried out for negligibly small risk. Conventional design approaches are deterministic, which ignore variations of the governing variables. To offset this limitation, high safety factors are considered that increase the cost of the structure. Reliability&ndash / based design approaches are probabilistic in nature since possible sources of uncertainties associated with the variables are identified using statistical information, which are incorporated into the reliability models. Risk analysis with the integration of risk management and risk assessment is a growing trend in dam safety. A computer program, named CADAM, which is based on probabilistic treatment of random loading and resistance terms using Monte&ndash / Carlo simulation technique, can be used for the safety analysis of gravity dams. A case study is conducted to illustrate the use of this program.