Remedial measures at the

Plavinas hydro plant, Latvla

R. Guimond, Electrowatt-Ekono Ltd, Switzerland
V. Tveritnev, Hydroproject Institute, Russian Federation
A. Krumins, Latvenergo, Latvia
A remedial project has been designed for the bitumen waterstops at construction Joint Ho. 8 of
the Plavinas hydro plant in Latvia, part of the Daugava cascade scheme. The need for the
rehabilitation work, and the Solutions proposed, are described here.

T
he Plavinas powerhouse is located on the
Daugava river and is the main Station in the
Daugava cascade development. The power-
house was built between 1961 and 1966, and as shown
in Fig. 1, consists of two blocks, each about 90 m
long, with abutment structures on the right and left
sides. Each powerhouse block houses five generating
Units, and together the 10 units have a capacity of
approximately 875 MW. The top of the powerhouse
was designed to be at approximately el. 75.6, but the
structure settled considerably.
On the left of the left abutment (looking in the direc-
tion of the water flow) there is a retaining wall leading
to an embankment dam made of hydraulic fill.
Similarly, on the right of the right abutment structure,
General view of the Plavinas plant.
there is a retaining wall leading to a dyke constructed
of Sandy loam fill. The left retaining wall is founded
on hydraulic fill and the right one is founded on sandy Vertical elastic construction joints
loam. This explains why the left retaining wall settled The vertical elastic construction joints consist of an
more than the right one. Adjoining the left abutment open gap between two rigid blocks with bitumen
and just upstream there is a low level retaining wall waterstops to stop water inflows. Since the bitumen is
parallel to the water flow, to protect the intake Chan- a viscous material, it would tend to flow out were it
nel. Next to the right abutment structure and upstream not for V-shaped concrete plugs, which themselves are
there is a retaining structure which is also parallel to retained by the iiquid' pressure exerted from the bitu-
the water flow to protect the intake. men. Between the concrete plugs and the concrete
An upstream apron is cast on undisturbed moraine, walls of the joints are 10 mm-thick bituminous feit
and on top of this there is a loam and sand filter with a Strips, which were glued to each side of the concrete
concrete mantel. The upstream 14.76 m of the power- walls during construction. Specially formed wires
house foundation slab is founded directly on moraine, were used to keep the concrete plugs in? position dur-
after which there is a filter section between the slab and ing construction.
the moraine; which is a notable feature of this power- The bitumen of these waterstops consists of 35 per
plant. There is also a downstream apron, which is part Cent asphalt, and 65 per cent cement (by weight). Three
of a concrete basin founded on moraine. The down- vertical elastic joints, each with a bitumen waterstop,
stream apron also acts as the spillway basin. h has 0.56 m^ in cross-section, lead to Joints No. 7 and No. 8
pressure relief holes to reduce the porewater pressure, of the apron gallery. In addition, two vertical steel pipes
which could otherwise cause uplift of the apron. 326 mm in diameter lead to Joint No. 8. These vertical
In view of the foundations, the designer provided waterstops are essential for replenishing the losses of
elastic construction joints to allow for some differen- bitumen in Joint No. 8, and providing a sufficient head
tial movement between the rigid bodies. of bitumen to avoid water Infiltration at that Joint.

Left bank abutment

Right bank abutment

-'2

Joint between right bank

Fig. 1. Axonometrie Joint between powerhouse abutment and wall
Joint between blocks
view of the and apron
powerhouse.

80 Hydropower & Dams Issue Six, 2002

 It is possible to heat the bitumen, and for this purpose
the designer provided three pairs of electrodes in each
vertical bitumen waterstop and one pair of electrode in
each filling pipe. However, according to Hydroproject
(HPI), these were seldom used. The reason why the
original electrodes were used so infrequently is
because of the danger of uncontrolled leakage of the
bitumen. For this reason, the dam maintenance office
prefers to use only one removable heating electrode at
a time, which they place when adding fresh bitumen.
The bitumen is placed on an as-needed basis. The
amount of leaking bitumen from the various joints cor-
responds approximately to the losses at Joint No. 8.
Horizontal elastic construction
joints
The horizontal elastic construction joints are very sim-
ilar to the vertical ones, and function essentially in the
same way. Each is composed of a gap between two
rigid blocks with bitumen waterstops to stop water
inflows. However, the gap is smaller in the case of the
horizontal joints, measuring only 4 cm as opposed to
the 10 to 16 cm for the vertical joints. The horizontal
joints are constructed as foUows: a strip of 65 x
10 mm-thick bituminous feit formed in a V-shape is
placed at the fentre of the Joint. A concrete wedge
plug is placed on top of this, and bitumen is then
poured above to the desired elevation. Within the bitu-
men there are two pairs of heating electrodes kept in
place by wires. According to Hydroproject, these heat-
ing electrodes were never used. On top of the bitumen,
the top concrete wedge plug is placed and is covered
by a bituminous V-shaped feit. The adjacent concrete
was provided with an asphalt coating and the protec-
tive concrete mantel was placed. Anchors on each side
of the Joint keep the concrete mantel in place.
Elastic construction Joint System
General waterstop network
The elastic bituminous waterstops in the construction
joints form a somewhat circuitous interconnected pip-
ing network. A bituminous waterstop is located
between the right apron and the right retaining wall
M-1-2, and two vertical bituminous waterstops are
located at the junction of the right abutment structure
and the right retaining wall M-1-2. At the junction
between the right powerhouse abutment and the right
retaining structure there are two vertical and two hor-
izontal bituminous waterstops. At the junction
between the left and right powerhouse blocks, there
are upstream and downstream vertical bituminous
waterstops, as well as upper and lower horizontal bitu-
minous waterstops. Between the left powerhouse abut-
ment wall and the left lower retaining wall, there are
two vertical bituminous waterstops; and, between the
left retaining wall and the powerhouse left abutment,
there is another one. As shown in Fig. 2, between the
upstream apron and the powerhouse base, there are
two horizontal bituminous waterstops at the apron
gallery, the upper one against the reservoir water pres-
sure and the lower one against porewater pressure.
In the right abutment structure, the upper bituminous
waterstop is at el. 42.9, and connects the two vertical
waterstops together; above it there is a gallery at el.
43.5. The lower horizontal waterstop is at el. 26.66
and was designed to prevent the porewater pressure
from entering the lower gallery of the right power-
house abutment. The lower horizontal waterstop
would also connect the two vertical bituminous water-
Hydropower & Dams Issue Six, 2002
stops together and would then also have connected Fig. 2. Section of
these to the lower Joint waterstops of the apron gallery the apron.
if it had not been damaged in 1987.
The damage occurred when the lower horizontal
bituminous waterstop with concrete Supports blew up.
The inflow of bitumen caused the level of bitumen in
the left vertical Joint of the right abutment structure to
lower suddenly, replacing the bitumen inflowing into
the lower gallery. The top bitumen of the vertical
waterstop did not flow as quickly as the lower portion,
either because it was more viscous, or as a result of a
small obstruction, causing a gap to form in the bitu-
minous waterstop near el. 38 in Joint No. 3. Water
flowed through this gap, submerging the lower section
of the right abutment structure.
With some difficulty it was possible to stop the water
from flowing further into the gallery. This repair Oper-
ation consisted of pouring concrete into the left gallery
up to el. 40, adding more bitumen at the top of the ver-
tical Joint and heating it, and placing a new cylindrical
bituminous Joint some 83 cm upstream of the original
bituminous waterstop.
Status of Joint IXo. 8
Joint No. 8 is a horizontal bitumen waterstop. Two
inspections were made of the apron gallery, and
although the Joint appears to be in a good condition,
there are some locations where there is bitumen flow-
ing out of the Upper Joint into the apron gallery. This
bitumen shows some signs of ageing, although it is
still somewhat elastic. There is no sign of water inflow
through the Joint. Previous attempts to stop the leak-
age were not successful. It should be stopped, since
uncontrolled leakage would empty the vertical joints
and lead to serious consequences. However, as will be
discussed later, a certain amount of outflow is neces-
sary to reduce a build-up of pressure and is also desir-
able to rejuvenate the bitumen in the waterstops.
Several propositions were studied. Fig. 3 shows the
existing apron gallery Situation and Fig. 4 shows the
preferred remedial measure.
Leakage ofthe
abutment Joint.
81
 Fig. 3. (a) Typical It is conceivable to fill the side galleries and Joint
cross section of gallery with a material to eliminate the risk of füll
the existing apron Concrete~3Ö cm ^
breakage of the joints; however, because of the poten-
gallery; and, (b) s a n d ~ 15 cm
tial differential movements, this material cannot be
detail showing
ojfset and previous concrete, but must be elastic such as WEBAC 4101.
repair. Bitumin coated board
^ or ashhalt
Such a major Solution is not proposed at this stage.
Instead, it is proposed to provide a second line of
defence, which can accommodate some differential
settlement. This is because monitoring of the apron is
done using the Joint gallery and it is therefore essen-
tial to keep the joints of this structure functional unless
it is proven that the galleries are no longer required.
- W o o d plank with putty
Moreover, the second line of defence would give suf-
(previous repair) ficient time to undertake the fiUing of an elastic mate-
rial in the galleries, should very large differential Set-
tlements occur in the future.

Recommendations for Joint No« 8

-Wood plank with putty
-Wlax.offset-lOcm
Critical role of Joint Wo. 8
Although inflows into the Joint gallery can be stopped
by two hatches located near the ends of the gallery
before it enters the powerhouse, the integrity of Joint
No. 8 is essential for the sliding stability of the power-
house insofar as the apron reduces porewater pres-
sures under the foundation of the powerhouse and
eliminates a small portion of horizontal pressures at
the level of the Joint gallery.
New 25 dia. anchor rods
^ L - 7 5 0 m m (gl333mm
(downstream side)
Calculation with respect to as-is Situation
The Situation today has changed somewhat. The struc-
ture is deformed, and is still undergoing slight move-
ments. It should be noted that Joint No. 8 opens and
closes with an annual amplitude of 1 mm from the
mean, which implies that the Joint closes about 2 mm
over six months. This may not seem much, and indeed
if the pipe System was intact as in 1965, any minor
pressure increase resulting from this movement could
easily be accommodated by the structure.
However, the vertical joints are now partially con-
stricted because of the differential Settlements at the
left bank, and debris at the centre. In 1986, while
placing new bitumen, it was found that the remov-
able heating rod in the vertical Joint could go no fur-
ther than 8 m; now the obstruction is at a depth of
some 13 m. (It should be determined whether it is
possible to bore through this obstruction). Or the
vertical joints could also be considered partially
constricted because of some incidents which
occurred on the right bank in 1987. The report enti-
tled Tlavinas HPP - Study of Pressures in Bitumen
of Joint No. 8 written by Institute Hydroproject
(HPI) Moscow in 2001, showed that a pressure of
130 t/m^ could be expected for a 2 mhi deformation.
This value is much higher than the design value, and
remedial measures, including pressure release
devices, are necessary.
A more important problem would be if the left and
right sides of the Joint came into contact. Friction
forces and contact forces would be introduced,
which were not foreseen by the original design, and
the strength capacity may be insufficient. The reme-
dial Solutions proposed do not consider such friction
or contact forces since they cannot be effectively
resisted by reinforcing the bottom of the Joint.
Dam
Hence, it is important to continue to monitor the
opening of the Joint, to ensure that there still is a

i Rubber 210 mm x 10 mm -v-^

Wire mesh 3 m"m~1^Ö"7T(iQ'nir—^'

small gap.

where Monotop 650 exceeds 8 cm

Proposed remedial measures
Roughen concreto 6 mm deep

Sika monotop 610

Electrowatt-Ekono (EWE), together with HPI, pro-
2 x 1 mm
Sika monotop 650
posed remedial measures to increase the reliability of
max.lOOmm the Joint using U-shaped stainless-steel sheeting with
Gaivanized steel, tensile
strength-350N/mm2
clamps. This can be seen in Fig. 4, which is similar to
Threaded bolt with washer Stainless steel dia.70 mm
a Solution used at the Rotterdam metro in 1965. Two
5 mm A2 stainless steel,
dia.20 mm Edge rounded 2 mm tensile strength steel plates, one on each side of the gap, would be
-450N|mm^
ASTM A3251\/l 4 stainless steel dia.10 mm
used to fasten an expansion plate.
Stainless steel plate dia.160 mm
The main advantage of this Solution is that it caus-
es the least obstruction to the the apron gallery, and

82 Hydropower & Dams Issue Six, 2002

w
provides sufficient flexibility to accommodate at
least a further 10 cm of movement of the Joint, hence
maintaining the concept of the original design. Any
increase in bitumen pressure resulting from the clos-
ing movement of the Joint will be largely alleviated
using pressure release devices (located every 3 m).
Extra 25 mm-diameter anchor bolts are required to
reinforce the bottom ledge. Rebar meters are
required to locate the anchor bolts away from the
reinforcement.
Conclusion
Remedial measures for Joint No. 8 were found to be
necessary. EWE and HPI recommended a Solution
with U-shaped stainless steel sheeting with clamps
which can accommodate future differential Settle-
ments. 0 special areas of expertise is repairs and the improvement of
O Daugava hydro plant for the past eight years. During this time
R. Guimond V. Tveritnev
MiM
ENGINEERING OF DAMS AND APPURTENANT
WORKS INCLUDING POWERHOUSES
is the title of a Conference organized by:
The Dams Society of India
The Indian National Hydropower Association
in association with the
Council of Power Utilities
29-31 January2003
Hotel Hyatt Regency, New Delhi, India
THEMES:
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• Legal, economic and environmental issues
• Case Studios, R&D, success stories, lessons
learned
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Contact: Council of Power Utilities, A-2/158 Janakpuri,
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F a x : + 91 11 561 1622 Website: w w w . l n d i a . o r g
Hydropower &. Dams Issue Six, 2002
Richard Guimond, PE graduated with B.Eng and M. Eng
degrees from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, and he
has been working as a Civil Engineer in the Hydropower
Department of Electrowatt-Ekono for the last 13 years. He has
acquired expertise in many aspects of hydro plant design, layout
and quality assurance, and has travelled extensively. He was
Chief Resident Engineer for the Houay Ho project in Laos, and
the Casecnan project in The Philippines. At present, is he Project
Manager for the lead Consultant on the Daugava project.
Electrowatt-Ekono Ltd, Hardturmstrasse 161, PO Box,
CH-8037 Zürich, Switzerland.
Valentin Tveritnev graduated in Hydraulic Engineering and
Construction Planning from the Moscow Civil Engineering
Institute. His present position is Chief Design Engineer at
the Russian Institute Hydroproject. He has participated in a
number of projects in Latvia as Chief Design Engineer, and
also in other countries such as Iran and Iraq. One of his
reliability and safety of hydro projects.
Hydroproject Institute, 2 Volokolamskoye Shosse, 125812
Moscow, Russian Federation.
Andrejs Krumins, a civil engineer, has worked on the
he has gained experience in many areas, including drainage
Systems, pump houses, deformation joints and the repair of
concrete structures. From 2000 to 2002, he was Head of the
Dam Safety Department at Latvenergo, and his responsibilities
included the evaluation of the behaviour of various hydro-
A. Krumins
technical structures. In 2001, he acquired additional experience
assessing dam safety conditions working with the US Bureau
of Reclamation. At present, he is the Head of the Dam
Improvement Department of the Daugava hydro plant.
Latvenergo, Pulkveza Brieza St. 12, Riga, LV - 1230,
Latvia.
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