Civil Engineering Dams

Dams built up on small scale by compacting successive layers of earth, using the most impervious materials to form a core and placing more permeable substances on the upstream and downstream sides.

A facing of crushed stone prevents erosion by wind or rain, and a suitable spillway, usually of concrete, protects against catastrophic overflow of the dam.... [Read More]

1. Rigid Dams (Concrete dams, steel dams, timber dams etc)
2. Non-Rigid dams (Beam Design Formulas , rockfill dams)

Hydropower planning covers a wide range of topics. Professionals from many disciplines take part in the planning and implementation of hydropower projects.

Civil engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, geologists, economists, ecologists, sociologists and many other experts combine their skills in order to develop an optimum design considering technical, financial, environmental and social aspects of hydropower development.... [Read More]

Dams are considered to be a vital element for the economic and energy growth of any country. As compared with other sources of energy the Hydel energy proves to be more cheap and environment friendly. Being massive structures dams are needed to be deal with intense care and precautions in order to avoid any unpleasant event.... [Read More]

A natural or artificial place where water is collected and stored for use, especially water for supplying a community, irrigating land, furnishing power, etc is known as reservoir.

One major consideration in the development of any surface water resource project is the structural stability of the reservoir which should be capable of containing safely the projected volumes of water for use throughout its life time.... [Read More]

1. Causes of dam failure
2. Prospects of large dams
3. Failure of Earth filled dams

It is recommended to establish a permanent dialogue with the environmental authorities as a very first step in the design phase. It would be convenient to provide a few guidelines that will help the designer to propose mitigating measures that can be agreed with the authorities. A high-head SHP project in mountains, being situated in a highly sensitive area, is more likely to generate impact that an integral low head scheme in a valley. The tail water from the power plant reenters the river and entire areas..... [Read More]

Hydropower plants can provide peak load service. Their fast response times enable them to meet sudden fluctuations in demand and this improves electricity grid stability and reliability. Production from hydropower .plants can start within just a few minutes while the time needed for other turbines are as much as 30 minutes. This feature, when combined with a storage capacity, offers a unique operational flexibility that can assist the development of other less flexible and less reliable ..... [Read More]

Spillways are structures constructed to provide safe release of flood waters from a dam to a downstream are, normally the river on which the dam has been constructed.

Every reservoir has a certain capacity to store water. If the reservoir is full and flood waters enter the same, the reservoir level will go up and may eventually result in over-topping of the dam. To avoid this situation, the flood has to be passed to the downstream and this is done by providing a spillway which draws water from the top of the reservoir. A spillway can be a part of the dam or separate from it. .... [Read More]

Earth dams are generally built of locally available materials in their natural state with a minimum of processing. Homogeneous earth dams are built whenever only one type of material is economically available. The material must be sufficiently impervious to provide an adequate water barrier and slopes must be relatively flat to make it safe against piping and sloughing.

The general design procedure is to make a first estimate on the basis of experience with similar dams and then to modify the estimate.... [Read More]