Ever wonder how much water is left in the Hoover Dam?

[Datawiz]

I found this picture taken during the construction of the dam, before the water was allowed near the site. Secondly, I found an image from 2015, cropped it, and made it partially transparent.

Interesting....

It's a LOT deeper than I thought, but when I visited it in 1999, the water was near the very top.

[DAB]

there's very little water in Hoover Dam, but quite a bit in Lake Mead.....

[Datawiz]

Originally Posted by DAB

there's very little water in Hoover Dam, but quite a bit in Lake Mead.....

[DAB]

Originally Posted by datawiz

[Datawiz]

The dam in 1983. One of only two times the spillways on either side were used.

[Datawiz]

In 2011

[StaticCling]

I've heard, I don't know if it's urban legend, that there is actually concrete within the damn that hasn't fully cured due to the amount used during construction...


That was one hell of an epic undertaking.

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by chinaski

I've heard, I don't know if it's urban legend, that there is actually concrete within the damn that hasn't fully cured due to the amount used during construction...


That was one hell of an epic undertaking.

Not heard THAT one, but I dunno concrete beyond a 6" slab.....

[DAB]

Originally Posted by chinaski

I've heard, I don't know if it's urban legend, that there is actually concrete within the damn that hasn't fully cured due to the amount used during construction...


That was one hell of an epic undertaking.

concrete never finishes curing, it gets stronger everyday. they ran cooling pipes thru the concrete, so they could remove heat as it cured so it wouldn't crack too much. curing concrete is an exothermic reaction. end of science for the day.

[Datawiz]

Concrete[edit]

Columns of Hoover Dam being filled with concrete, February 1934 (looking upstream from the Nevada rim)
The first concrete was poured into the dam on June 6, 1933, 18 months ahead of schedule.[59] Since concrete heats and contracts as it cures, the potential for uneven cooling and contraction of the concrete posed a serious problem. Bureau of Reclamation engineers calculated that if the dam was built in a single continuous pour, the concrete would take 125 years to cool and the resulting stresses would cause the dam to crack and crumble. Instead, the ground where the dam was to rise was marked with rectangles, and concrete blocks in columns were poured, some as large as 50 feet (15 m) square and 5 feet (1.5 m) high.[60] Each five-foot form contained a series of 1 inch (25 mm) steel pipes through which first cool river water, then ice-cold water from a refrigeration plant was run. Once an individual block had cured and had stopped contracting, the pipes were filled with grout. Grout was also used to fill the hairline spaces between columns, which were grooved to increase the strength of the joins.[61]

The concrete was delivered in huge steel buckets 7 feet (2.1 m) high and almost 7 feet (2.1 m) in diameter—Crowe was awarded two patents for their design. These buckets, which weighed 20 short tons (18 t) when full, were filled at two massive concrete plants on the Nevada side, and were delivered to the site in special railcars. The buckets were then suspended from aerial cableways, which were used to deliver the bucket to a specific column. As the required grade of aggregate in the concrete differed depending on placement in the dam (from pea-sized gravel to 9 inch (230 mm) stones), it was vital that the bucket be maneuvered to the proper column. Once the bottom of the bucket opened up, disgorging 8 cubic yards (6.1 m3) of concrete, a team of men worked it throughout the form. Although there are myths that men were caught in the pour and are entombed in the dam to this day, each bucket only deepened the concrete in a form by an inch, and Six Companies engineers would not have permitted a flaw caused by the presence of a human body.[62]

A total of 3,250,000 cubic yards (2,480,000 m3) of concrete was used in the dam before concrete pouring ceased on May 29, 1935. In addition, 1,110,000 cubic yards (850,000 m3) were used in the power plant and other works. More than 582 miles (937 km) of cooling pipes were placed within the concrete. Overall, there is enough concrete in the dam to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York.[47] Concrete cores were removed from the dam for testing in 1995; they showed that "Hoover Dam's concrete has continued to slowly gain strength" and the dam is composed of a "durable concrete having a compressive strength exceeding the range typically found in normal mass concrete".[63] Hoover Dam concrete is not subject to alkali–silica reaction (ASR) as the Hoover Dam builders happened to use nonreactive aggregate, unlike that at downstream Parker Dam, where ASR has caused measurable deterioration.[63]