History of Dams, Locks and Levees
The conception of dams, locks and levees.
Water is an essential resource which life depends on. Civilizations in the past have evolved to exist around water as it provides a source of food, transportation, and trade. However, people realized that they were unable to extract the potential that water as a resource had. Thus, in order to harness energy of water, to use it as means of transportation and to utilize hoard of other benefits of a resource like water and at the same time to mitigate the risks associated with it humans conceptualized structures such as dams, locks and levees.
1. Dam
A typical dam can be built by the solid material across a river, thus stopping and storing the flow of water. Being …show more content…
The dam foundation area should be well stripped of and all the unsuitable material must be disposed. Afterwards, the foundation can be prepared by removing the seams of weak material and replacing with concrete. Besides, the foundation also needs to be grouted, which involves drilling holes and pumping these holes full of cement grout. The grouting process is designed to fill up open cracks in the rock foundation, so that the water will not leak out of the reservoir after the dam is finished.
Once the preparation work is done, the construction of dam wall can be commenced by following the steps of hauling, dumping and compacting construction materials. Compaction helps to make sure that the placed fill will have the desired properties of maximum density and low settlement over time. All of these can help to reduce the possibility of internal erosion failure. Floods control is the most important aspect when designing the dam, so engineers must find suitable clay, gravel and rock to make sure the stability of dam wall.
2. …show more content…
Under this incident due to heavy rain the dam got flooded and failed. This happened so because as the water flows over the top it weakens the ground or river bed in front of the dam and thus it becomes vulnerable to toe curls. This overflowing water now starts to scour the ground underneath. As soon as the ground in front of a dam is lost the dam loses its foundation and begins to rotate over. So while constructing Grand Coulee Dam special precautions were taken so that what happened in Johnstown would not happen again. So the bottom of the dam was formed as concrete curve. This senses the water shooting down the spillway into a tumbling vortex which dissipates its energy. As the water cascades off the curve it loses much of its destructive power. This concrete curve at the bottom of the dam is technically called as Flip
The conception of dams, locks and levees.
Water is an essential resource which life depends on. Civilizations in the past have evolved to exist around water as it provides a source of food, transportation, and trade. However, people realized that they were unable to extract the potential that water as a resource had. Thus, in order to harness energy of water, to use it as means of transportation and to utilize hoard of other benefits of a resource like water and at the same time to mitigate the risks associated with it humans conceptualized structures such as dams, locks and levees.
1. Dam
A typical dam can be built by the solid material across a river, thus stopping and storing the flow of water. Being …show more content…
The dam foundation area should be well stripped of and all the unsuitable material must be disposed. Afterwards, the foundation can be prepared by removing the seams of weak material and replacing with concrete. Besides, the foundation also needs to be grouted, which involves drilling holes and pumping these holes full of cement grout. The grouting process is designed to fill up open cracks in the rock foundation, so that the water will not leak out of the reservoir after the dam is finished.
Once the preparation work is done, the construction of dam wall can be commenced by following the steps of hauling, dumping and compacting construction materials. Compaction helps to make sure that the placed fill will have the desired properties of maximum density and low settlement over time. All of these can help to reduce the possibility of internal erosion failure. Floods control is the most important aspect when designing the dam, so engineers must find suitable clay, gravel and rock to make sure the stability of dam wall.
2. …show more content…
Under this incident due to heavy rain the dam got flooded and failed. This happened so because as the water flows over the top it weakens the ground or river bed in front of the dam and thus it becomes vulnerable to toe curls. This overflowing water now starts to scour the ground underneath. As soon as the ground in front of a dam is lost the dam loses its foundation and begins to rotate over. So while constructing Grand Coulee Dam special precautions were taken so that what happened in Johnstown would not happen again. So the bottom of the dam was formed as concrete curve. This senses the water shooting down the spillway into a tumbling vortex which dissipates its energy. As the water cascades off the curve it loses much of its destructive power. This concrete curve at the bottom of the dam is technically called as Flip