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Whalley Bridge Incident Overkill?


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is the Whaley bridge Dam incident a little bit of overkill? the concrete outer shell is unlikely to be structural? its the material underneath which is the actual dam wall?

sure take precautions but now its a major logistical nightmare for residents as well, surely instead of the hardcore bags the helicopter is flying in very skillfully i may say, wouldn't it have made sense to pump in quick setting concrete from the side of the dam as a temporary measure? instead of inconveniencing the whole area, if it was going to collapse it would have by now.

Edited by Borista336
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It’s risk aversion on a massive scale.

 

The bags of ballast are actually doing nothing to stabilise the structure and may even cause a problem once the water level is reduced on the other side. In the very unlikely event that the dam does collapse, the ballast will just provide shrapnel to do even more damage to the properties below.

 

Apart from anything else, the bags of ballast will need to be removed before any remedial work can take place. I suspect that decisions are being made by the emergency services rather than structural engineers.

 

 

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31 minutes ago, Borista336 said:

is the Whaley bridge Dam incident a little bit of overkill? the concrete outer shell is unlikely to be structural? its the material underneath which is the actual dam wall?

sure take precautions but now its a major logistical nightmare for residents as well, surely instead of the hardcore bags the helicopter is flying in very skillfully i may say, wouldn't it have made sense to pump in quick setting concrete from the side of the dam as a temporary measure? instead of inconveniencing the whole area, if it was going to collapse it would have by now.

Ground is too wet, pumps will sink. They're having to build platforms I think just to get heavier pumps out there to get the water out. As of this morning they've got the water level down about 0.5m, they need it down about 3m.

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49 minutes ago, Borista336 said:

is the Whaley bridge Dam incident a little bit of overkill? the concrete outer shell is unlikely to be structural? its the material underneath which is the actual dam wall? ...

Beneath the outer concrete shell is an earth embankment with a puddle clay core.

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34 minutes ago, horribleblob said:

Beneath the outer concrete shell is an earth embankment with a puddle clay core.

Technically the slipway is not part of the core structure of the dam.

 

It is just there to protect the slope from erosion as water flows over the surface. If you removed the whole thing, the dam wouldn’t collapse, even if much of the downstream slope was washed away.

 

Cosmetic damage only.

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