Optimum design height of cofferdams

The cost of Cofferdams as a function of design height is described by a basic lot size model. The cost components include construction and flooding risk cost, the former increases while the latter decreases with design height. Using an exponential function for the expected number of floods, together with Poisson assumptions, an expression is derived for the probability of no flooding. From this expression a reliability chart is constructed that can be used to estimate the flooding risk for a given design height and period. By minimizing the cost objective function, a design chart is also presented giving optimum design height in terms of parameters such as: estimated daily flooding cost, construction cost per unit height, average flood duration, mean and variance of the hydrological data. Sensitivity of the solution to errors in estimating model parameters is discussed.