GRAVITY DAM

Gravity dams were the first type of dam ever to be constructed, and were made from stone bricks or concrete bricks. One of the first gravity dams on record was built by the Egyptians around 2950 to 2750 BC. The dam, called Sadd el-Kafara and meaning "Dam of the Pagans," was 121.4 feet (37 m) tall and 348 feet (106.1 m) wide at the crest. The materials used to build the dam included a rubble masonry type wall, and 10,000 tons of gravel and stone filler. A covering of limestone was applied to the dam to protect it from erosion. Due to shoddy and hasty workmanship however, the dam failed to be watertight eventually resulting in its erosion after only a a few years.[6] Another rudimentary form of gravity dam was supposedly fabricated around 3000 B.C. in the town of Jawa, located in Jordan. These gravity dams were part of a very elaborate water supply system. The town satisfied its water needs by damming runoff to form reservoirs. A 15-foot (4.5m) high and 263-foot (80-m) long gravity type dam impounded one of these storage reservoirs.[7] The Romans built their own gravity dams in the Iberian Peninsula region, North Africa, and in the Middle East. A dam located at Homs, Syria in 284 A.D. impounded one of the largest reservoirs built by the Romans. The dam was 6,562 feet (2,000 m) in length and held back about 118 million cubic yards (90 million m3) of water.[8] Around 100 A.D., the Romans became the first civilization to use concrete and mortar in the construction of gravity dams. One example was the dam at Ponti di San Mauro, fabricated out a large slab of concrete as evidenced by the great block of concrete found amongst its remains.[9] Later gravity dams used a trapezoidal cross section. This cross section eventually evolved into the common triangular cross section design of today's gravity dams. The first version of a modern gravity dam was built between 1765 and 1800 in Mexico.[10] In 1850, J. Augustin Tortene de Sazilly hypothesized that the most advantageous cross section for a gravity dam was triangular with a vertical upstream face. By 1872, the use of concrete in the construction of gravity dams made a comeback for the first time since the Roman era. This was a result of the widespread use of Portland cement.[11] With the development of Portland cement came the development and construction of giant, super gravity dams such as the Hoover dam that was nearly 60 percent higher than, and two and half times the size of, any other dam in existence. The amount of water this colossal gravity impounded was also record breaking -- 46,498 million cubic yards (38,550 million m3) of water.[12] Today, gravity dams are still being fabricated out of concrete, but with the incorporation of posttensioned steel, a new development in their construction. However, the construction of gravity dams piqued in the 1960s and the building of these massive structures has slowly been tapering off due to the high labor and construction costs involved.

ARCH DAM

The first known arch dam, the Glanum Dam, also known as the Vallon de Baume Dam, was built by the Romans in France and it dates back to the 1st century BC.[2][3][4] The dam was about 12m high and 18m in length. Its radius was about 14m and it consisted of two masonry walls. The Romans built it to supply nearby Glanum with water. The Monte Novo Dam in Portugal was another early arch dam built by the Romans in 300 AD. It was 5.7m high and 52m long with a radius of 19m. The curved ends of the dam met with two winged walls that were later supported by two buttresses. The dam also contained two water outlets to drive mills downstream.[5] The Dara Dam was another arch dam built by the Romans in which the historian Procopius would write of its design: "This barrier was not built in a straight line, but was bent into the shape of a crescent, so that the curve, by lying against the current of the river, might be able to offer still more resistance to the force of the stream."[2] The Mongolians also built arch dams in modern-day Iran. Their earliest was the Kebar Dam built around 1300, which was 26 m high and 55 m long, and had a radius of 35 m. Their second dam was built around 1350 and is called the Kurit Dam. After 4 m was added to the dam in 1850, it became 64 m tall and remained the tallest dam in the world until the early 20th century. The Kurit Dam was of masonry design and built in a very narrow canyon. The canyon was so narrow that its crest length is only 44% of its height. The dam is still erect, even though part of its lower downstream face fell off.[3] The Elche Dam in Elche, Spain was a post-medieval arch dam built in the 1630s by Joanes del Temple and the first in Europe since the Romans. The dam was 26 m high and 75 m long, and had a radius of 62 m. This arch dam also rest on winged walls that served as abutments.[3] In the 20th century, the world's first variable-radius arch dam was built on the Salmon Creek near Juneau, Alaska. The Salmon Creek Dam's upstream face bulged upstream, which relieved pressure on the stronger, curved lower arches near the abutments. The dam also had a larger toe, which off-set pressure on the upstream heel of the dam, which now curved more downstream. The technology and economical benefits of the Salmon Creek Dam allowed for larger and taller dam designs. The dam was, therefore, revolutionary, and similar designs were soon adopted around the world in particular by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.[3] Arch dam designs would continue to test new limits and designs such as the double- and multiple-curve. The Swiss engineer Alfred Stucky and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation would develop a method of weight and stress distribution in the 1960s, and arch dam construction in the United States would see its last surge then with dams like the 143-meter doublecurved Morrow Point Dam in Colorado.[6] By the late 20th century, arch dam design reached a relative uniformity in design around the world.
[3]

Currently, the tallest and largest arch dam in

the world is the 292 m Xiaowan Dam in China, which was completed in 2010.[3] The longest

multiple arch with buttress dam in the world is the Daniel-Johnson Dam in Quebec, Canada. It is 214 meters high and 1,314 meters long across its crest. It was completed in 1968 and put in service in 1970.[7] China is currently constructing the Jinping 1 Dam in Sichuan, which when complete will be world's tallest arch dam at 305m.[8]

EMBANKMENT DAM
The oldest known dam in the world is a masonry and earthen embankment at Jawa in the Black Desert of modern Jordan. The Jawa Dam was built in the 4th millennium BCE to hold back the waters of a small stream and allow increased irrigation production on arable land downstream. Evidence exists of another masonry-faced earthen dam built about 2700 BCE at Sadd el-Kafara, about 30 km (19 miles) south of Cairo, Egypt. The Sadd el-Kafara failed shortly after completion when, in the absence of a spillway that could resist erosion, it was overtopped by a flood and washed away. The oldest dam still in use is a rockfill embankment about 6 metres (20 feet) high on the Orontes River in Syria, built about 1300 BCE for local irrigation use. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians built dams between 700 and 250 BCE for water supply and irrigation. Contemporary with these was the earthen Marib Dam in the southern Arabian Peninsula, which was more than 15 metres (50 feet) high and nearly 600 metres (1,970 feet) long. Flanked by spillways, this dam delivered water to a system of irrigation canals for more than 1,000 years. Remains of the Marib Dam are still evident in presentday Marib, Yemen. Other dams were built in this period in Sri Lanka, India, and China.

BUTRESS DAM
Roman Buttress Dams Esparragelejo
Whenever Roman engineers, often erroneously, judged the stability of a dam wall to be inefficient, they backed it up by irregularly spaced buttresses. But some dams were too thin. Buttress could not prevent the failure of the super thin, 0.9 m dam wall at Ituranduz. By contrast, some dams were over designed. The Olisipo dam was 6.5 m thick and didn't need help from its buttresses. The most remarkable of the Roman buttress dams is the one near the village of Esparragalejo. The 5.6 m high and 320 m long dam was supported in its central part with 12 buttresses averaging 1.2 m wide, 3.2 m thick and spaced 8.6 m apart. However, the novel feature was that the downstream face of the 2 m wide dam wall became curved between the buttresses. Thus, the first multiple arch dam was born!

Buttress Dams in Postmedieval Europe

Castellar
The Castellar storage dam in Spain was built around 1500 and had three water wheels to power its mill house. The sturdy end and walls of the mill house were actually buttresses ensuring the dam's stability. It is certainly no coincidence that this structural concept re-emerged in a region in which the Romans had built many buttress dams.