Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

Register Log in

Oroville Dam Spillway Concrete Failure (Feather River Flooding, CA) 36

Status
Not open for further replies.
msquared48

msquared48

Structural
Aug 7, 2007
14,745
0
0
US

Erosion has created a 300-foot-deep hole in the concrete spillway of Oroville Dam and state officials say it will continue grow.
State engineers on Wednesday cautiously released water from Lake Oroville's damaged spillway as the reservoir level climbed amid a soaking of rain.

Situated in the western foothills of the Sierra, Lake Oroville is the second-largest manmade reservoir in California after Shasta....
Click to expand...

Member Spartan: Stage storage flow data here for those interested:

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
 
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

Sort by date Sort by votes
Ah John, I see what you mean. Weird. All the state cameras seem to have that problem.
All the highway cameras do that too. You wait such a long time you think they don't work.

jgKRI; The spillway ends with those large teeth early for energy dissipation. The teeth
cause the water to go airborne and to collide with the arriving water. There's huge
energy available at the bottom of the spillway! If it went clear to the river it would
hydraulically mine the river out (scouring). Furthermore since that spillway cost about
$1b consider what it costs per foot.

Keith Cress
kcress -
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
The "road" at the base of the spillway is a temporary construction road that was built during the recovery.
Access across the spillway is somewhat limited without it.

The presumption is that it is quick to remove (few days work) and so they are leaving it until they know they will be operating the spillway.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
itsmoked said:
jgKRI; The spillway ends with those large teeth early for energy dissipation. The teeth
cause the water to go airborne and to collide with the arriving water. There's huge
energy available at the bottom of the spillway! If it went clear to the river it would
hydraulically mine the river out (scouring). Furthermore since that spillway cost about
$1b consider what it costs per foot.
Click to expand...

That makes sense- thanks for the explanation.

Hadn't occurred to me but when you think about it it's pretty obvious that the outflow would heavily erode the river bed... it'd be the same as switching on a waterfall a couple hundred feet tall.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It appears that they might be preparing to open the spillway. I say this because as seen from the webcam below, it looks like they're starting to remove the temporary road that was built across the setting pond at the end of the spillway discharge:


There has been a lot of rain in the area and with the warming temps, the snow melt must be having an impact on the lake level. They can only release just so much water through the power-plant and so it's inevitable that the spillway was going to used sometime this Spring.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Yes, it looks like they're almost done removing the temporary road across from the discharge end of the spillway and since they're working on Saturday, I suspect that the level of the reservoir has reached the point where they will soon need to use the spillway.


And this video shows that they've also removed a construction staircase and some pieces of equipment from the spillway itself, just another indication that it may soon be put to the test.


John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It's being rumored that there will be at least a test of the spillway this week. The level of the lake is nearly 40 feet above the entrance to the spillway gates and from what I've been able to find, the lake is raising about 9 inches per day, even with the generating plant running at what I suspect is near capacity. Besides, based on what I've found, the lake can only rise something less than 50 feet before water would start to flow over the emergency spillway.


John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
While the spillway gates are obviously not open, it does appear that a substantial amount of water is 'leaking' into the spillway proper. If you select the link below to the webcam, it pans around to four different views and one of them clearly shows water 'flowing' across the face of the spillway.


John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
NPR said they will begin testing the spillway today.

----------------------------------------

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It's here, but getting hammered and times out a lot:


Here's a screen cap:

Screen_Shot_2019-04-02_at_2.20.51_PM_paywix.png
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Their fix is equivalent to a new coat of paint on a rotting sinking house. I doubt they fixed the damn shifting a few inches forward. It needed extra pylons sunk into the Bedrock when it was first made, and it still needs them. also the water seems to be getting caught on the cracks in the cement... Again. when there's a big flow the cement will once again tear away.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
"Their fix is equivalent to a new coat of paint on a rotting sinking house. I doubt they fixed the damn shifting a few inches forward. "

And this is insufficient? Based on what analysis?

[URL unfurl="true" said:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Newly-rebuilt-Oroville-Dam-spillway-is-back-And-13728330.php[/URL]]The half-mile-long main spillway, where the initial fracture occurred, is now as wide as a 15-lane freeway and averages 7½ feet thick compared with 2½ feet in the original 1960s version. It is capable of handling up to 270,000 cubic feet of water per second, way more than dam operators ever expect to release and nearly twice the capacity of the old chute, which could handle only 160,000 cubic feet per second.

The new 3,000-foot-long spillway has steel pillars anchoring the structure 15 to 25 feet deep into bedrock and a modernized drainage system. The old spillway had only 5-foot-deep piles holding it in place.
Click to expand...

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
This screen capture is a bit clearer. Those diffusion blocks really spreads the water out.

Screen_Shot_2019-04-02_at_7.12.00_PM_gal4xs.png


John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
pre_engineer said:
Their fix is equivalent to a new coat of paint on a rotting sinking house. I doubt they fixed the damn shifting a few inches forward. It needed extra pylons sunk into the Bedrock when it was first made, and it still needs them. also the water seems to be getting caught on the cracks in the cement... Again. when there's a big flow the cement will once again tear away.
Click to expand...

You're in the wrong thread. look a little further down this forum for the thread which started based on a click bait BS story that the spillway was already failing again.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I think this needs to moved to the ENGINEERING SUCCESS STORIES AND DISASTER PREVENTED forum.

----------------------------------------

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Tomfh
  • Question
Silo Collapse, Shoalhaven River Australia
Replies
4
Views
48
LionelHutz
LionelHutz
Sym P. le
  • Question
Strong River bridge collapse in Mississippi 1
Replies
16
Views
60
DirteJoe
DirteJoe
azcats
  • Locked
  • Question
Rapidan Dam - MN 1
2
Replies
22
Views
23
Heaviside1925
Heaviside1925
SSCon
  • Locked
  • Question
Dam Failures in Derna, Libya 25
5 6 7
Replies
139
Views
140
dik
dik
Murph 9000
  • Locked
  • News
Residents evacuated in Nashville, Illinois after dam overtops and floods amid heavy rainfall
Replies
2
Views
9
FacEngrPE
FacEngrPE
Back
Top