Hoover Dam ―― the Famous Water Conservancy Project in the World

Hoover Dam is a key project for developing Colorado River in America. It is located in Black Canyon, the boundary of Nevada and Arizona. It has comprehensive benefits of flood prevention, irrigation, electricity generating, navigation and water delivery, etc.

Hoover Dam belongs to arched concrete gravity dam, 221.4-meter high and 379.2-meter long, annual power generation can reach 2080 megawatt hours. Lake Mead is formed by Hoover Dam, total storage is 34.85 billion cubic meters. It started to construct in April, 1931 and finished in March, 1936, the first machine officially began to generate electricity in October, 1936.

The bedrock of Hoover Dam are andesite and breccia. The riverbed is narrow and both sides are steep. To fasten the dam foundation, cement grouting and drainage system were adapted. Because of the compact time, several working procedures should be done at the same time. Self drilling anchor bolt can put drilling, anchoring and grouting together, it had great help for increasing efficiency.

In the mass concrete construction project, Hoover Dam divided dam body into 230 columnar bumps to solve the problem of heat dissipation, which became a successful model for mass concrete projects in the world and had great influence for the development of construction technology.