DAMS

Niteen B
INTRODUCTION:
• Dam is a hydraulic structure built across the flow of water to impound
water so as to create reservoir.
• Dams Provide Important Services.
• Dams generate about 16% of world’s electricity and irrigate food
crops for 12-15 % of the world’s population.
• To a lesser extent, dams have also been built for water supply, flood
protection, navigation and tourism purposes.
• Most dams have been built for irrigation, but 80% of the water they
store is used for hydropower.
• Humans have been building dams for thousands of years. The ancient
Egyptians and Romans built dams to control water, some of which are
still in use today. Modern dams are more complex to build and take a
lot of work, power, time and money.
• A dam can be made of concrete, rocks, wood, steel or earth. Dam
engineers design, build and maintain large dams that can range from
50 to 1,000 feet (15 to 300 meters) in height.
• Some examples of large dams are the Grand Coulee Dam in
Washington (550 feet tall), Dworshak Dam in Idaho (717 feet
tall), Glan Canyon Dam in Arizona (710 feet tall) and Hoover
Dam in Nevada (726 feet tall.)
• The tallest man-made dams in the world are Nurek Dam in Tajikistan
(984 feet) and Jinping-I Dam in China (1,001 feet.)
• The most important load that a dam must support is the water behind
it. How much the water pushes on the dam is called water pressure.
Water pressure increases with the depth of the water.
• People have used different materials to build dams over the centuries.
Ancient dam builders used natural materials such as rocks or clay.
Modern-day dam builders often use concrete.
• Manmade dams create artificial lakes called reservoirs. Reservoirs can
be used to store water for farming, industry, and household use.
• They also can be used for fishing, boating, and other leisure activities.
People have used dams for many centuries to help prevent flooding.
• The ancient Mesopotamians may have been some of the first humans
to build dams. The oldest known dam is the Jawa Dam, located in
present-day Jordan. It was built in the fourth century B.C.E.
• Dams provided farmers with a steady source of water to irrigate crops.
• This allowed ancient Mesopotamians to feed a growing population.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resourc
e/dams
• The Romans were master-dam builders too. They used dams to divert water
for drinking, bathing, and irrigation. One of the oldest dams still in use is the
Cornalvo Dam in Spain.
• The ancient Romans built it in the first or second century C.E.
• The force of flowing water creates mechanical power.
• People have harnessed this power for centuries with the use of dams.
• Small dams powered paddle wheels in pre-industrial Europe and America.
• These were used to help saw logs or grind corn and other grains.
• During the Industrial Revolution, engineers began to build bigger dams.
• These industrial-sized dams could hold back more water to power the big
machinery of factories and mines. They also could turn giant turbines to
generate electricity.
• The early 1900s ushered in an era of “big dam” building in America as
demands for electricity increased. During the Great Depression,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt put Americans back to work building
massive dam projects. The most famous of these is the Hoover Dam.
• The Hoover Dam sits on the border between Nevada and Arizona. It
was completed in 1936. The Hoover Dam is regarded as an
engineering marvel. It was the tallest dam ever built at the time—222
meters (727 feet).
• The dam helped to control the flow of water on the Colorado River by
creating Lake Mead, one of the largest reservoirs in the United
States. Lake Mead provides drinking water for the city of Las Vegas.
• Dams have long been viewed as a symbol of human ingenuity. However,
ecologists who study rivers and lakes have uncovered some environmental
downsides to dam construction.
• Dams change the way rivers function, and in some cases, this can harm local
fish populations.
• Flooding landscapes to create reservoirs can have consequences
for biodiversity as well. Brazilian biologist Raffaello Di Ponzio studies the
impact of big dam projects on the plants and animals of the Amazon
Rainforest.
• More than 200 hydroelectric dams have been proposed in Brazil. While
these dams could help satisfy growing South American energy demands,
they would also flood more than 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of
the Amazon Rainforest.
Gravity dam: Grand Coulee Dam (US Bureau of
Reclamation)
https://www.usbr.gov/pn/grandcoulee/
Arch dam: Glen Canyon Dam (USBR)
https://www.usbr.gov/pn/
Buttress dam: Bartlett Dam (USBR)
https://www.usbr.gov/pn/
Embankment dam: Pineview Dam (USBR)
https://www.usbr.gov/pn/
https://indiawris.gov.in/wiki/doku.php?id=large_dams_in
_india
TYPES OF DAMS
Dams may be classified on the following basis
Function
Hydraulic Design
Structural Behavior and
Materials of construction
Classification Based on Function
Dams are built for various purposes. Based on the purpose the dams have to satisfy, they are classified
into the following categories:
(a) Coffer dam. During actual dam construction, the dam site is to be kept dry. Hence temporary dams
are constructed to divert the stream/river. These temporary dams are known as coffer dams.
(b) Diversion Dams. These are the structures built across the river to divert part or whole of water into
channels. They are also known as diversion weir.
c) Debris Dams. Dams constructed to retain the debris like sand, silt, gravel and wood
flowing with water in the rivers are called as debris dams.
(d) Detention Dam. These are the dams primarily constructed to temporarily detain flood waters of a
river and to gradually release the stored water at controlled rate so that down stream side is protected
from flood havocs.
(e) Storage Dam. These are the dams built to store the water to create resorvoir. The stored water is
used throughout the year for water supply and/or for irrigation. Such dams may serve as detention dam
to control floods. But these dams are primarily built to store the water. Krishnaraj Sagar dam, Tunga
Bhadra dam (Hospet), Hidkal dam and Narayanpur dams are some of the famous dams of Karnataka
Classification Based on Hydraulic Design
Based on hydraulic design dams may be classified as
(a) Overflow dams
(b) Non-overflow dams
(c) Partially overflow dams.

• Overflow dams. An overflow dam is constructed with a crest to permit

overflow of surplus water. A typical cross-section of such dam is shown
in Fig.
• Non-overflow dams. A non-overflow dam is the one which will not
allow overflow of water on it.
• In most of the cases part of a dam is designed to permit overflow and
part of it is non-overflow portion.
Classification Based on Structural Behavior

On the basis of structural behavior, the dams may be classified as

(a) Gravity dams
(b) Arch dams
(c) Buttress dams and
(d) Embankment dams
• Gravity dam: The dams which resist the forces exerted by stored water
by its self weight are called as gravity dams. They are massive in
construction. They are built with concrete or masonry. They may be
solid or may have an inspection gallery within. The figure shows
cross-section of a such dam.
• Arch dam: An arch dam is curved in plan. It is built with masonry or
concrete. The hydraulic pressure from the reservoir is resisted by arch
action. Only arch dam in India is the Iddukki dam. The following fig
shows a typical arch dam.
• Buttress dam. In buttress dams usually reinforced concrete arch slab
retains the water. These arches are supported by concrete or masonry
buttresses. Typical cross-section of this type of dams are shown in Fig.
• Embankment dam. Embankment dams resist the hydraulic forces
mainly by shear. They are made up of non-rigid materials like earth
and rock-fill.
Classification Based on Materials of
Construction
Material of construction used may be grouped into the following two categories:
a) Rigid
b) Non-rigid
Rigid dam: Masonry, concrete, steel or timber dams may be called as rigid dams.
• Masonry and concrete dams of great height can be built. Bhakra dam is a concrete dam of height 226 m.
• Timber and steel dams are constructed only for small heights.
• Now a days they are rarely built. Gravity dams shown and buttress dams are rigid dams.

Non-rigid dam: Non-rigid materials used for construction of dams are earth, rock fill, tailings etc.
• Combination of these materials may be used to get impervious dams with sufficient strength.
• In this type of composite dams upstream side consists of earth fill with stone pitching while down stream side
consists of rock fill or sand and gravel fill.
• They are provided with impervious core which may be by using impervious soil or by using stone masonry.
Typical cross sections of such dams are shown.
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