Dam — Showtime

For those of you that are like me and fascinated with large projects.

Barnard the main contractor. I know from a previous life that they like their Cats. That fella Witt has made some ineresting videos on the mining/construction industry. There was one about re-engining 1980s 651E/657E scrapers with Tier 4 engines in California, plus this one from my old stomping ground. In fact the shot of the palm tree @ 11:55 on the video is taken from the door of what was my office.

Nige said: Barnard the main contractor. I know from a previous life that they like their Cats. That fella Witt has made some ineresting videos on the mining/construction industry. There was one about re-engining 1980s 651E/657E scrapers with Tier 4 engines in California, plus this one from my old stomping ground. In fact the shot of the palm tree @ 11:55 on the video is taken from the door of what was my office. Click to expand... The young fella does a good job with the videos I think. I look forward to viewing this one knowing there is a connection to you in it!

Nige said: Barnard the main contractor. I know from a previous life that they like their Cats. That fella Witt has made some ineresting videos on the mining/construction industry. There was one about re-engining 1980s 651E/657E scrapers with Tier 4 engines in California, plus this one from my old stomping ground. In fact the shot of the palm tree @ 11:55 on the video is taken from the door of what was my office. Click to expand... That was impressive to watch. Quite the facility.

This was our other branch just outside town where space was not at such a premium. if you look on a map the city of Antofagasta is built on a narrow North-South strip of land no more than a couple of miles wide between the Pacific Ocean and the start of the mountains This location does new machine builds and old(er) machine overhauls.

I get his enthusiasm but he lacks a whole lot of fundamental helpful knowledge. It would not take but a minute to study and then be able to present the idea of spray deposition and have that term in your vocabulary. Same thing with dye penetrant and eddy current Non Destrucive Testing (NDT). Maybe this old man is being harsh, but I would put him to school each day before recording a video. It would add a great deal. How about calibrating torque wrenches, rather than say instruments 5 or 6 times while showing torque wrenches ?

I agree. You can't fault him for enthusiasm but if you're going to present this sort of technical video it is really incumbent on you to do your homework.

Clicks and views are all that matter anymore. 99% or the people that watch the content probably wouldn't know a torque wrench from a crescent wrench.

Oxbow said: For those of you that are like me and fascinated with large projects. Click to expand... I thought this dam building video was rather interesting. Especially the info about the dam having an impermeable asphalt core. I was not aware that a dam could be built with that type of core zone. Back 50 years ago, my first job out of college was doing field inspection work on what was supposed to be the largest earthfill dam east of the Miss. River. The engineering company I worked for was well known for building dams all around the world. The dam, in Ohio, was 228' high. It had a very wide layer of impermeable clay-like material in the middle, with coarse rock and rip rap on either side. Later, we did a test built of a small dam using flyash as a core. Apparently, the flyash was too "brittle/rigid" when compacted and could form cracks that would leak. We did not build any dams with flyash. This asphalt seems like a good idea. Although, I would think they would require a much wider layer. Very interesting.

I worked in the building of a dam with an asphalt core back in the late 1970s. Funnily enough the Swiss company installing the core in the dam in Colorado was the same one that over 40 years ago installed the core in the dam I worked on. IIRC it is a very specialist job.

I'd say they have that figured out. Elastic, and the lower part of it is both compacted and compressed by everything above. Most impervious where the hydraulic forces are also the greatest.

I failed to mention one important thing. Asphalt is the 2nd choice for a core material if there are no supplies of a suitable clay on the job site with which to construct the core. The rock fill on both the upstream and downstream sides of the dam is what provides the weight to hold back the water, the core simply stops the dam leaking......

Nige said: This was our other branch just outside town where space was not at such a premium. if you look on a map the city of Antofagasta is built on a narrow North-South strip of land no more than a couple of miles wide between the Pacific Ocean and the start of the mountains This location does new machine builds and old(er) machine overhauls. Click to expand... Thanks for sharing Nige. Question to show my ignorance: The bed shown in the video have a semi-circular bed extension on the rear that I have not noticed on other trucks. Is this because the material that they are hauling is somewhat lighter than typical, and therefore they can max out their payload with the extension? Also, this would seem to provide a lower center of gravity than simply extending the side heights, which may present a difficulty when loading. Is that part of the reason for them? I feel honored to have someone that worked with this scope of equipment to converse with! Thank you for your input.

Nige said: I failed to mention one important thing. Asphalt is the 2nd choice for a core material if there are no supplies of a suitable clay on the job site with which to construct the core. The rock fill on both the upstream and downstream sides of the dam is what provides the weight to hold back the water, the core simply stops the dam leaking...... Click to expand... I was a bit surprised at the use of asphalt as well. It makes sense, but one would think that importing bentonite and mixing with soils would be much less expensive than asphalt. You don't have to go too far from Colorado (or perhaps in Colorado) to find bentonite. I suppose the quality control and consistency of asphalt is a plus, and using existing materials and only importing the oil and hot plant for asphalt must have made the cost calculations fairly straightforward.

Oxbow said: The bed shown in the video have a semi-circular bed extension on the rear that I have not noticed on other trucks. Is this because the material that they are hauling is somewhat lighter than typical, and therefore they can max out their payload with the extension? Click to expand... Not really. It is what's known as an MSD (Mine-Specific Design) body. The idea is that it's tailored specifically to the characteristics of density, material size, abrasion, and a load of other factors specific to that mine site. Also you have to remember that these trucks generally don't dump into a crusher or anything like that. They simply dump big loads of dirt over the edge of a waste dump. In a way you're right though, the extension at the tail end is to get more material in the body to enable the truck to be loaded right up to its maximum rated GVW of 624 metric tonnes.

Nige said: MSD (Mine-Specific Design) body. Click to expand... Thanks for spelling that out----too many frigging abbreviations these days.

Truck Shop said: Thanks for spelling that out----too many frigging abbreviations these days. Click to expand... I absolutely practice the scientific writing method I learned in college. You define your acronym every time when you start your paper. After that you can use the acronym. Assume nothing.

Nige said: known as an MSD Click to expand... Ignition.

Found a couple of photos from when I worked at the dam project. We had a very wide clay core zone. It was probably 200 ' wide, or more. We placed fill for the dam all during the winter of 73-74. Worked 6 days/week with 2, 12 hour shifts. One thing the contractor was absolutely forbidden to do, was to place any new core material on top of a frozen layer. So, before starting a new lift in the core, the contractor ran a "jet drier" over the surface and melted the frost. It was then scarified and recompacted before new fill could be placed. It took about 2 days to get a new area ready for fill when it had to be thawed first. Jet drier photos:

skyking1 said: I absolutely practice the scientific writing method I learned in college. You define your acronym every time when you start your paper. After that you can use the acronym. Assume nothing. Click to expand... Well some on here forget when a member comes on asking questions about why there equipment doesn't run, then the replies pile up with one abbreviation after another about sensors and other such things--more than likely that person gets lost in hurry. Because not everyone went to college, but I think every time a mechanic goes to see his or her doctor---all replies should be abbreviated the the nurse can hand them a code reading chart.