Abstract: Once an asphalt core wall dam with strong anti-scour capability encounters a super-standard flood, it will be faced with the risk of collapse and pose a grave threat to downstream people. Previous studies on life loss caused by asphalt core wall dam breach are still lacking, and its assessment is an urgent issue. This paper presents an analysis of the characteristics of the breach flood under the action of a super-standard flood. Considering the interaction between the influencing factors of life loss, we construct a physical model for a quantitative assessment, based on the disaster-causing mechanism of breach flood, so as to realize a rapid quantitative analysis of life loss. Through method comparison and sensitivity analysis, the roles of different life loss factors are determined. This model is applied in a case study of the Sheyuegou breach in Xinjiang. We find the breach flood features a peak flow of 3320 m3/s and a duration of 3.35 h, which agrees with the real conditions. The quantitative life loss model predicts 31 casualties and its error is within 11%, better than previous life loss models. The sensitivity indexes Imax and Imin of the at-risk population are the largest, 1.44 and 0.19, respectively. They are the two most important factors of life loss caused by the Sheyuegou dam breach. Other factors are the severity of flood, whether to evacuate, alarm timing, and inundation extent.

Key words: super-standard flood, asphalt core wall dam, breach characteristics, loss of life, quantitative analysis