Aldeadávila Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam on the Douro River (also known as the Duero River), which forms the border between Spain and Portugal. A 1927 treaty on transboundary rivers regulated the development of hydroelectric facilities on the Douro River, and Aldeadávila Dam was built by Spain in 1962 as the last of its dams. The dam is 460 feet high and cost US$60 million (about $466.5 million in 2014 inflated-adjusted dollars). It was one of a series of very high dams built in Europe in the two decades after World War II. The dam is a gravity-arch dam, which means it is curved against the downstream flow of the river. This simplified the dams design and construction (although it required more concrete to build), and allowed spillways to be more easily incorporated into the dams face -- which is nearly vertical. Design work on the dam began in 1956, and construction was complete in 1963. It was built by the Iberdrola Ingeniería y Construcción construction firm. Pedro Martínez Artola was the design engineer. An underground power station and tunnels were excavated using a mining procedure known as large-chamber stoping, and the dams use of this technique is considered a textbook example. The turbine and generator room is 460 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 130 feet deep. Aldeadávila Dams most unique and eye-catching feature is its eight overflow gates which channel water into four spillways. The spillways incorporate side piers (known as the teeth) on the upstream face to more correctly channel water over the dam so that each spillway discharges the same amount of water. The spillways release their water slightly above the actual bed of the river, creating a waterfall effect when they are fully open. The total spillway capacity is half that of Grand Coulee Dam. The dams eye-catching, ski jump style spillways are its most noted feature, and have been called outstanding by leading dam engineers. The canyon through which the Douro River flows is exceptionally deep and narrow, leaving behind a reservoir that has a relatively small surface area for its immense size. In some ways, this limits use of the reservoir for recreational activities. However, the Aldeadávila Dam reservoir is a popular one for boating. Several scenes in the 1965 David Lean film Doctor Zhivago were filmed at Aldeadávila Dam. The dams famous spillways are shown in the motion picture open at full force. Another scene depicts workers walking into one of the dams enormous tunnels.
Posted on: Sat, 12 Apr 2014 17:25:30 +0000
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