As the dams are aging and the design requirements continuously increase, complexanalyses may be required that consider aspects previously excluded in the original design.Due to the harsh environment in cold regions with significant seasonal temperature variations,many con- crete dams have cracked. The development of cracks may result in internal failuremodes, where parts of the dam may fail. These internal failure modes are thereby primarily governedby the material failure of reinforcement and concrete. When assessing cracked hydraulicstructures, how- ever, many design guidelines are based on global safety factors for stability failuremodes, i.e. overturning and sliding, while the partial coefficient methods are used for thestructural design related to material failures. By using a developed design methodology basedon finite element analysis, all these failure modes but also combinations of different failuremodes can be consid- ered. In this paper, the design methodology is presented and implementedto assess the structural safety of a cracked concrete spillway section. The result provides supportfor dam owners on how to manage pillars of concrete dams subjected to extensive cracking.