St. Francis Dam Research Paper

The methods of construction, the tools, and the equipment used for the St. Francis dam were very common in this era. The actual construction at the dam site began in April 1924 and was led by superintendent Stanley Dunham. For the workers a large camp had been set up near the site for them to stay at. While at the camp Mulholland used his free time to look at the sites geological facts. The canyon contained a concrete batch plant and local aggregate was assimilated with 1.12 barrels of Portland cement. San Franciqusito Creek gave them the cumulative source and was located between one-quarter and two miles downstream. The flow of the creek was very low. Therefore only a little cofferdam was needed at the site and was incorporated in St. Francis’s …show more content…
All the gravel and sand that were in the dam were uncovered from the channel. Even though most people believe that there wasn’t uplift in the dam and that is what caused the huge catastrophe. In fact, there was uplift but like many other dams the uplift was not designed accordingly to the dam. On the right side of the dam there was Vaqueros sandstone that was dug up by a steam shovel. The sandstone extended ten feet into the path of the dike. Everything that was done on the left side was done in a similar way. The left side though was extended to about 15 or 20 feet. CITEEE After the failure of the dam a trench that was about 3 by 3 was stated to be under some of the dam’s blocks. The St. Francis’s dams’ main section grieving cutoff or control. A lot of the structures preparation details would gain acceptance about ten years after the failure of the …show more content…
In July 1925 the dam’s height was increased ten feet and the reservoirs capacity was increased to 38,168 acre feet. The new size coincided with Los Angeles’ water consumption. This 10-foot change which would be the second rising of the dam and would oblige to the construction of a 588-foot long wing dike along the top of the ridge in order to contain the enlarged reservoir. Increasing the size and capacity would require an additional 3800 yards of concrete. Even though the height changed twice the width of the dam never changed. The wing dyke had to be constructed on the western side of the dam to keep water from spilling over a low ridge when the dam would be filled. The St. Francis Dam had a stepped downstream face, which made this dam very distinctive and different from other dams. The height of each step in the dam was constantly five feet but the width of the step was centered on the elevation above sea level. The width of these steps was normally five and a half feet near the streams bed base and the width decreased to 1.45 feet at the base of the spillways. The streams bed base was at 1,650 feet and the spillways were at 1,816 feet. All of the spillway sections had an open area that was 18 inches high and 20 feet wide for the overflow to pass. The auxiliary spillways were built across a natural saddle, which had