dams - soletanche bachy · and special features of each project. global operations around the...

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As a world benchmark in geotechnical engineering, Soletanche Bachy builds on its water engineering expertise to take on dam construction and repair projects as a main or specialist contractor.

Long-standing business activity

The history of Soletanche Bachy is closely related to dam development. Expanding on the boring and grout injection expertise it employed on a large number of projects in France and North Africa from the 1930s to the 1970s, the Group took part in the construction of very large dams around the world over the following decades. It builds on a track record going back more than a century to offer its customers the solutions best suited to the requirements and special features of each project.

Global operations

Around the world, dams provide important services including water supply, irrigation, electricity generation and flood control.

Many dams are currently under construction or being planned in Africa, where demand is very strong, and in South America and India. In North America and Europe, the market is driven by demand for refurbishment, reinforcement and heightening of existing dams. Supported by its Major Projects Department, Soletanche Bachy’s network of 80 subsidiaries and branches addresses all these issues. The Group also uses its expertise on embankment projects.

Soletanche BachyDams

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A comprehensive range of solutions

Soletanche Bachy covers the full range of geotechnical expertise, i.e.:

design, engineering and boring

construction of cut-off barriers walls injection curtains jet grouting

consolidation works anchorages injection ground improvement

drainage works

instrumentation and monitoring

The choice of the most suitable solutions ensures the long-term durability of the new or existing dam on consolidated and improved ground. Beyond its specialist expertise, Soletanche Bachy works in synergy with the other Soletanche Freyssinet companies on broader projects such as concrete structural repair and dam diagnostics and monitoring.

A one-of-a-kind range of services

With more than 30 design offices and 200 design engineers, Soletanche Bachy delivers integrated design capabilities. Its specialist geotechnical and underground water engineering teams combine local knowledge and global experience in dam works.The Group’s equipment experts design and build the equipment needed for each project and its materials laboratory formulates the required concrete, slurry and other injection products.

Ahead of the curve in innovation

From its inception, Soletanche Bachy has been identified with major technical breakthroughs. The Hydrofraise®, which can drill through hard deep geological horizons, exemplifies the Soletanche Bachy technical innovations that have become benchmarks in the field of dam construction and refurbishment.Having pioneered injection monitoring and

verticality monitoring during drilling, the Group continues to innovate and files a large number of patents every year. To address restricted environments, it is also investing in the development of motors that generate less pollution and in robotised machines.

A general contracting approach

As a leading provider of works with significant geotechnical content, which involve most of a project’s risk, Soletanche Bachy has also built one-of-a-kind general contracting capabilities.

Everywhere in the world, the Group can step in as a partner working alongside the client to meet the project’s technical challenges and reduce its environmental and social impact. Soletanche Bachy teams pay careful attention to the client’s goals in order to understand the requirements and provide customised, reliable and competitive solutions.

123 metresDepth of the cut-off wall built by Soletanche Bachy in 1990 to repair internal erosion at the Mud Mountain Dam in the United States.

49 kmLength of the cut-off slurry wall built by Soletanche Bachy in 1992 as part of the construction of the Yacyreta Dam in Argentina.

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Gilboa DamUnited StatesThree lakes and 19 reservoirs connected to two separate systems supply 4.2 billion litres of drinking water every day to nearly half the population of New York State. The Schoharie Reservoir impounded by the Gilboa Dam in the northern part of the Catskill/Delaware system covers 16% of New York City’s annual drinking water requirements. As part of a major reservoir and dam upgrade programme, Nicholson Construction Company was awarded the first of the five project phases. In 2006 and 2007, in an emergency context (the dam could fail in a major storm event and the residents immediately downstream had been given emergency radios to receive early warnings), the Soletanche Bachy subsidiary in the United States carried out work to stabilise the dam. Five drilling rigs were used to install 79 high-capacity anchors (up to 1,000 tonnes) with lengths ranging from 30.5 to 73 metres, of which 47 were installed vertically through the dam crest.

Structure55 metre high, 213 metre long gravity dam

Owner

New York City Department of Environmental Protection

Main contractor

Nicholson Construction Company

16% of the requirements of New York

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Richland Creek ReservoirUnited StatesAs one of the only counties in the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area without an independent water supply, Paulding County long depended on neighbouring Cobb County. With its population expected to double over the next 25 years, Paulding County has launched the Richland Creek Reservoir Water Supply Program to supply its own water. The programme includes construction of a dam, a reservoir, a water treatment plant, two pump stations and more than 30 km of pipelines. On the strength of its track record, Nicholson Construction Company won the seepage barrier contract for the future dam. The work is divided into two phases. The first, completed in 2017, consists of a 640-metre grout curtain with a maximum depth of 42 metres. The second, under construction in 2018, consists of a 381-metre cut-off wall with a maximum depth of 29 metres.

Water supply for today and

tomorrow

Structure38 metre high, 1,265 metre long dam

Owner

Paulding County

Main contractor

Brad Cole Construction


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Wolf Creek DamUnited States


The Wolf Creek Dam on the Cumberland River in southern Kentucky is nearly 2 km long and supports hydroelectric generation, flood control, navigation and recreational activities. Following discovery of regressive erosion in the underlying karsts, a contract was awarded to the Treviicos-Soletanche joint venture to rehabilitate the foundations of the dam. To solve the problem, the joint venture built a barrier wall behind a 52,000 sq. metre, 1.8 metre thick, 85 metre deep diaphragm wall. The 91,000 sq. metre barrier wall, which combines secant piles and Hydrofraise® panels, runs through the embankment and extends downwards through 50 metres of clay and 35 metres of rock. The project, which won a Deep Foundations Institute award, was handed over in 2014 following four and a half years of work.

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Wolf Creek DamUnited States

2013 Outstanding

Project Award

Structure79 metre high, 1,748 metre long earthen gravity dam

Owner

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)

Main contractor

Treviicos-Soletanche JV (TSJV)

Structure208.5 metre high rockfill gravity dam

Owner

CFE

Main contractor

ICA

La Yesca DamMexicoThe La Yesca Dam on the Santiago River in the state of Nayarit, the world’s second-highest rockfill dam, was inaugurated in 2012. Its reservoir capacity of up to 1.4 million cu. metres can be used to generate electricity via its 750 MW hydroelectric plant. The two Mexican Soletanche Bachy subsidiaries worked on this project. During construction, Cimesa was responsible for ground improvement and construction of a seepage barrier by means of jet grouting. When the dam was first filled, seepage was observed in the untreated right bank and Rodio Cimentaciones México was called in to address the problem. Descending grout injections were undertaken from outside the structure and ascending injections were also carried out from the galleries. The project required 5,650 metres of drilling and 460 cu. metres of grout.


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Antamina mining complex damPeru

The Antamina mining complex, one of the world’s ten largest copper and zinc mines, is located at an altitude of 4,300 metres in the Ancash Region and produces a variety of ore concentrates. In 2016, Soletanche Bachy Perú worked with Soletanche Bachy Chile to watertight the tailings retention dam. Soletanche Bachy’s Peruvian and Chilean subsidiaries built a 1 metre thick, 30 metre deep plastic concrete diaphragm wall and a 50 metre deep grout curtain below and on either side of the dam. The construction of the cut-off wall required diaphragm wall equipment used for the first time in Peru.

Candelaria mine embankmentsChileThe Candelaria copper mine in the Atacama Desert, 800 km from Santiago, is being expanded. To prepare its operation over the coming 15 years, the mine is constructing a second tailings storage facility to store up to 600 million tonnes of tailings from the copper extraction process. Soletanche Bachy Chile worked on the project, which includes installation of a cut-off wall and a drainage wall. The Soletanche Bachy subsidiary in Chile worked in three different areas. Downstream from the central embankment, it built a plastic concrete cut-off wall and a drainage wall, the deepest ever built by the Group. At the foot of the south embankment, it installed a slab on the mountainside to build a grout curtain by means of more than 40 km of grouted holes. Lastly, in partnership with specialised Soletanche Bachy subsidiary Bessac, it built a 358-metre microtunnel underneath the central embankment to drain filtration water from the impoundment for re-use.

StructureRetention dam

Owner

Antamina

Main contractor

Soletanche Bachy Perú-Soletanche Bachy Chile

Structure99 metre high earthen gravity embankments with a 2 km crest

Owner

Lundin Mining

Main contractor

Soletanche Bachy Chile

Unprecedented diaphragm

wall project at an altitude of 4,000 metres


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Wimbleball DamUnited Kingdom

The Chacrillas reservoir impounds 27 million cu. metres of water. Designed to irrigate more than 7,000 hectares of surrounding agricultural land, it is located on the Rocín River in the Valparaiso Region. In 2015 and 2016, Soletanche Bachy Chile built a grout curtain along the sides and foot of the dam during its construction. The Soletanche Bachy subsidiary in Chile devised solutions commensurate with the challenges of poor quality rock and steep inclines. To secure the work on slopes of up to 40°, it developed special platforms moved by a system of winches. To drill in the rock, it primarily used diamond drilling. To complete the grout curtain (which extends to a depth of up to 70 metres), it used a total of seven drilling rigs and three grout injection plants to drill 39,800 metres and inject 3,120 cu. metres of grout and mortar.

Euro

peThe Wimbleball Lake water supply reservoir, commissioned in 1979 to supply western Somerset and Devon, is located in Exmoor National Park, Somerset, which is famous for its moorlands and woodlands. In 2013

and 2014, Bachy Soletanche carried out substantial remedial grouting to address seepage through the dam foundations. The project used complex 3D modelling during drilling operations and the GIN method during grouting to ensure maximum dam stability. The Soletanche Bachy subsidiary in the United Kingdom handed over the grout curtain, which involved more than 6,000 metres of drilling and the injection of 870 cu. metres of grout, notably superfine cement, in October 2014.

Chacrillas DamChile

Slope of up to 40°

Drilling and grouting

to a depth of up to 80 metres

Structure102 metre high, 320 metre long earthen gravity dam

Owner

Chilean Ministry of Public Works

Main contractor

Soletanche Bachy Chile

Structure49 metre high, 300 metre long concrete buttress dam

Owner

South West Water and Wessex Water

Main contractor

Bachy Soletanche


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Illsee DamSwitzerland


Lake Nyos DamCameroon

Lake Nyos is a 1 by 2 km crater lake lying at an altitude of 1,100 metres on the flank of an inactive volcano. Soletanche Bachy International worked in 2012 and 2013 to reinforce the natural embankment impounding the lake. To prevent erosion and preclude flooding of the downstream North-West Province, the Major Projects Department built a double jet grouting barrier to help stabilise the structure. The project, carried out in a particularly isolated area, presented many technical and logistical challenges.

The Illsee hydroelectric dam in the heart of the Pennine Alps underwent substantial reinforcement works between 2011 and 2013 to address two problems. The first was structural: the concrete, affected by an alkali-silica reaction, was swollen and cracked; the second was regulatory: built in 1923, the dam did not meet current seismic standards. Sif Groutbor won the contract to carry out special works to upgrade the dam to standards. The Soletanche Bachy subsidiary in Switzerland anchored the dam deep in the bedrock by installing 67 post-tensioned anchors with an ultimate tensile strength of 725 tonnes and 91 GEWI 50 mm nails. To carry out the challenging project at an altitude of 2,300 metres, the company devised commensurate solutions, bringing in personnel and supplies by cable car, installing the anchors by helicopter, limiting drilling deviation to 1% and managing work interruptions due to weather.

Illsee DamSwitzerland

High-capacity cable anchors

10,500 metres of

jet grouting columns

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Structure25 metre high, 270 metre long concrete gravity dam

Owner

Argessa

Main contractor

PraderLosinger-Imboden-Evéquoz-Dénériaz joint venture

Structure40 metre high natural embankment

Owner

Cameroon Ministry of Economy, Planning and Regional Development

Client representative

NAO Support Unit of the European Development Fund

Main contractor

Soletanche Bachy-Razel joint venture


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Asia

Subansiri Lower DamIndiaThe Subansiri Lower Dam is the largest hydroelectric project ever undertaken in India. The dam being built on the eponymous river straddling Assam State and Arunachal Pradesh State in the northeast of the country will supply 2,000 MW of electricity when completed. Soletanche Bachy International has been preparing since the summer of 2016 to build a cut-off wall at the interface between the foot of the dam and the superficial geologic layers of the valley. The wall is an 18,000 sq. metre plastic concrete wall with eight elevations and is mainly being built from galleries with restricted headroom. The Major Projects Department is innovating and devising customised solutions to address the project’s many challenges – technical, logistical, weather related, etc. It has mobilised a compact containerized Hydrofraise® specially designed for confined and congested spaces and developed a concreting system to replace traditional concrete tremie pipes, which cannot be used in this restricted environment.

Structure116 metre high, 264 metre long concrete gravity dam

Owner

National Hydroelectric Power Corporation

Main contractor

BGS-SGS-SOMA JV

Restricted gallery

headroom


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Subansiri Lower DamIndia


Oce

ania Waitaki Dam

New Zealand

The last conventionally built dam, going back to the 1930s, the Waitaki Dam is also one of the few such structures without a spillway. The Waitaki Dam on the eponymous river in the Otago Region in the south-eastern part of South Island has an installed capacity of 105 MW and supplies electricity to some 51,000 households. Between 2015 and 2016, March Construction carried out a dam drainage improvement project. Working for Meridian Energy, the Soletanche Bachy subsidiary in New Zealand refurbished the 75 existing groundwater drains, drilled 54 new drains with a maximum length of 34 metres and carried out the drilling required to install vibrating wire piezometers as instrumentation. All work was carried out in challenging conditions from one of the two interior galleries and an outside upstream gallery, which have a maximum width of 1.2 metres and a maximum height of 1.9 metres.

Foundation drainage upgrade

Structure48 metre high, 542 metre long concrete arch dam

Owner

Meridian Energy

Main contractor

March Construction

Photos credits: Yves Chanoit, Yannick Cormier, Cédric Helsly, Soletanche Bachy photo library, all rights reserved. ©Soletanche Bachy - June 201826

280 avenue Napoléon Bonaparte92500 Rueil-Malmaison – FrancePhone: +33 (0) 1 47 76 42 62

www.soletanche-bachy.com

Soletanche Bachy is a world benchmark in foundations and soil technologies, operating in nearly 70 countries via a network of 80 subsidiaries and branches. The Group delivers the full range of geotechnical processes and provides innovative, effective solutions as either a lead or specialist contractor for turnkey projects with a geotechnical focus or specialist works.

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dams - soletanche bachy · and special features of each project. global operations around the...

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