Oroville Spillway Repairs

[ScottAR]

 

[Jim D]

The CA Dept of Water Resources repair plan for the Oro Dam spillway shows the extensive use of roller compacted concrete.

This is new to me; I only knew of rcc 'paving'. Evidently rcc is used to build dams!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller-compacted_concrete

 

[Birken Vogt]

I knew of RCC as dam material long before I ever knew it was used for roads. Funny.

I have never seen an RCC road, yet.

 

[ScottAR]

A vid showing the general process.

 

[ScottAR]

interesting report...

 

[hvy 1ton]

Link to the PDF report for those who don't want to give the LA Times clicks.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3672058/Oroville-report.pdf

 

[DMiller]

Do not care how they treat it or compact it it is the nature of concrete to shrink and swell with moisture and or temperature. It is going to crack, just how bad is up to the elements and the batch master.

 

[ScottAR]

 

[Birken Vogt]

Do not care how they treat it or compact it it is the nature of concrete to shrink and swell with moisture and or temperature. It is going to crack, just how bad is up to the elements and the batch master.

In the most recent video Juan mentions something like 30' square slabs with sealed expansion joints. Not sure how they are going to do that but it sounds like the right idea. Remember in the pre-failure videos how much water was pouring out all the drains.

 

[fast_st]

Brown water even, much more scary! But the volume of water was impressive. Maybe slabs with rebar pockets and pins and that nice goop they glue runways together with.

 

[Jim D]

hvy 1ton, thanks for posting the link to the report. Looking at the report, it doesn't surprise me that the spillway was in a poor state of repair. California has been 'running on empty' for many years.

The California DWR never had enough 'time or money' to maintain and fix the spillway, but they are 'heros' now, and they will replace or repair it in an 'amazingly short' amount of time. For an amazing amount of money.

 

[hvy 1ton]

It wasn't just poorly maintained, it wasn't designed or built all that well either. The fact that a lot of the floor was poured on weathered rock probably takes the cake. Runner up, they had water infiltration issues in the sub base before they finished pouring the spillway. Second runner up, the trees the inspectors asked them to remove i don't know how many times.

 

[Birken Vogt]

Now it starts...the never ending barrage of weenies who want to slow it down one way or another

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article154942329.html

 

[ScottAR]

Doesn't seem to be slowing much...

 

[ScottAR]

Progress.

 

[ScottAR]

 

[hvy 1ton]

Some video from the DWR.

 

[fast_st]

I gotta say Juan Browne is one hell of a Journalist. Hope he gets to write off all of his flight time

 

[Birken Vogt]

I wondered how they got that rock so clean with just fire hoses, now I see, rubber squeegee (cut up old tire) on an excavator.

 

[fast_st]

I wondered how they got that rock so clean with just fire hoses, now I see, rubber squeegee (cut up old tire) on an excavator.

I was watching them wash and scrub and thinking, open the spillway a bit, it'll wash everything off in a hurry even with the gap in the upper spillway, maybe use some of that 18 inch heavy wall flexible plastic pipe, start a siphon and aim it with the excavator.