Types Of Dams

A dam is a barrier built across a water course to hold back or control the water flow. Some dams divert the flow of river water into a pipeline, canal, or channel. Others raise the level of inland waterways to make them navigable by ships and barges. Many dams harness the energy of falling water to generate electric power. Dams also hold water for drinking and crop irrigation, and provide flood control.

According to their functions, dams serve three main purposes: storage, diversion, or detention.

Theyare constructed to impound water in periods of surplus supply for use in periods of deficiency. Many small dams impound the spring runoff for later use in dry summers. Storage dams may also provide a water supply, or improved habitat for fish and wildlife. They may store water for hydroelectric power generation, irrigation or for a flood control project

They provide sufficient pressure for pushing water into ditches, canals, or other conveyance systems. Such shorter dams are used for irrigation, and for diversion from a stream to a distant storage reservoir.

They minimize the effect of sudden floods and trap sediment.

They carry water discharge over their crests, and are made of materials that will not be eroded by such discharges. Non-overflow dams are designed not to be overtopped, and may include earth and rock in their structure. Often the two types are combined to form a composite structure.

Earthfill dams

The development of modern construction equipment has made massive earthfill dams economical. The Rogun and Nurek dams in Tajikistan, the world's highest, are earthfill structures. Canada's Syncrude Tailings, which will be the world's most massive, is also an earthfill structure.

Earthfill dams typically have a water-impermeable clay core, and a water cut-off wall from their base to bedrock to prevent underground seepage. During construction, the stream or river must be diverted either through the dam-site by means of a conduit, or around it by means of a tunnel.

Earthfill dams require supplementary structures as spillways for discharging water from behind the dam. If sufficient spillway capacity is not provided, an earthfill dam may be damaged or even destroyed by the erosive water flowing over its crest. Unless special precautions are taken, such dams are also subject to serious damage or even failure, due to water seepage.

Embankment or rockfill dams

The rockfill dam uses rock instead of earth to provide stability. It has an impervious, watertight membrane, usually an upstream facing of impervious soil, concrete paving, or steel plates; or it may have a thin interior core of impervious soil.

Rockfill embankment dams and zoned-embankment dams are the most common embankment dams. Rockfill embankment dams have a mound of loose rock covered with a waterproof layer on the upstream side. The waterproof layer may be made of concrete, flat stone panels, or other impervious materials. Zoned-embankment dams include an impervious core surrounded by a mound of material that water can penetrate. The supporting mound is usually made of loose rock or earth. The core might be built from concrete, steel, clay, or any impervious materials.

Embankment dams hold back water by the force of gravity acting upon their mass. Embankment dams require more material because loose rock and earth are less dense than concrete. Engineers often choose to build them if the materials are readily available. Our Tarbela Dam contains more than 126 million cubic metres earth and rock. This amounts to more than 15 times the volume of concrete used in the Grand Coulee Dam.

Gravity dams

Gravity dams hold back water only by the sheer force of their weight pushing downward. To do this, gravity dams must consist of a mass so heavy that the reservoir water cannot push the dam downstream or tip it over. They are much thicker at the base than the top. As water becomes deeper, it exerts more horizontal pressure on the dam. Gravity dams are relatively thin near the surface of the reservoir, where the water pressure is light. A thick base enables the dam to withstand more intense water pressure at the bottom of the reservoir.

Most gravity dams are made from concrete, a mixture of port land cement, water, and aggregates. Concrete is well suited for dam construction. A concrete gravity dam uses a triangular cross-section and steep upstream face. Its shape differs from that of the earthfill or rockfill dam in that its inward, water-facing side is perpendicular to the water surface; in profile, the dam forms a right-angled triangle.

The Grand Coulee Dam contains nearly 8 million cubic metres concrete. It is one of the most massive structures ever built, standing 168 metre high and 1,592 metre long.

Concrete Arch

Concrete arch dams are built in narrow, steep-walled canyons. The canyon walls take up the thrust exerted by the arch and the pressure of the water. Such dams can be extraordinarily thin. Vaiont Dam is 265 metres high, but only 22.7 metres thick at its base. In comparison, Hoover Dam is 221 metres high and 201 metres thick at its base and has a partial arch effect.

Glen Canyon Dam, which spans the Colorado River in Arizona, is the highest arch dam in the United States. It is 216 metres high and 475 metres long but contains less than four million cubic metres of concrete. Arch dams can be less expensive to build than gravity dams..

Buttress dam

A buttress dam consists of a face supported by several buttresses on the downstream side. Buttress dams are made of concrete reinforced with steel. Buttresses are typically spaced across the dam site every 6 to 30 metre, depending upon the size and design of the dam. Buttress dams are sometimes called hollow dams because the buttresses do not form a solid wall stretching across a river valley.

Buttress dams require less concrete than gravity dams, but are not necessarily less expensive to build. Costs associated with the complex work of forming the buttresses or multiple arches may offset the savings in construction materials. Buttress dams may be desirable, however, in locations with foundations that would not easily support the massive size and weight of gravity dams.