56 years after the inauguration of the Kariba dam on the Zambesi River, a pit must be created to strengthen its foundations. A real technical feat performed by RAZEL-BEC.
Thanks for posting this. I was a diver on the first repair project in1969. We performed dentistry underwater, filling holes in the walls of the plunge pool with cement bag walls back-filled with rocks & pumped full of cement. In those days the pool was 230 ft deep & I worked at 180ft. We thought major repairs would be needed sooner than has proved to be the case.
David Livingstone did not discover the falls as they were indigenous Toka Leya people who settled in the area hundred of years before. However, he was the first white man to see it.
The turbines installed in the dam can also be used to provide relief when water levels rise. The two power utilities would just have to figure out where to take that extra generated power!
Congratulations!! I am not an engineer, but I am interested in some aspects. Kariba Dam is the largest man-made dam (185 km3 of water). It is almost five times bigger than the Chinese Three Gorges Dam (38 km3). However, the Three-Gorges Dam has an installed capacity of 22,500 MW compared to Kariba's 1,626 MW (with the Zambia side). Is the difference only in terms of number turbines, Kariba has 14 compared to 34 and their capacity? What is the maximum that can be harnessed from Kariba, if financial resources were available (a simple matchbox calculation says 110,000 MW)?
I have wondered why engineers don't build trompes on the outlet of dam walls and hydro electric installations. Trompes provide a continual source of compressed air which can be used in adajcent towns for cooling, running machinery, vehicles etc. They cost very little to maintain, are environmentally friendly and a largely unexploited source of sustainable energy, despite being a 2000+ year old technology. That way the output of the dam or hydro electric installation would be able to passively generate more power. It seems that Kariba dam would be an excellent site to investigate in this regard.
Interesting idea, which I hadn't heard of before! Perhaps it is more cost-effective to simply run the water through a turbine? The flow would be very intermittent, in any case. Flowing only when the in-flow to the dam is very high so, once again, not cost effective to make use of the seemingly wasted energy?
I share the same view. We might never enjoy the spectacular view of the artificial waterfalls. Granted, the spill gates are necessary to safeguard the dam wall in a case where all the generators shutdown and the water levels are critically high. Engineering design requires all manner of contingency.
David did not discover Mosi~o~tunya! Locals took them there. Imagine me as a Zambian going to UK and telling people I discovered Thames River. Would that not be absurd?
Belle Of New York water from the dam has to go down stream to the river below to continue to cabora bassa and onto Mozambique. So whilst this going on there must be a diversion of the water flow from the zambezi.
@@markoosthuysen4346 wait a second, this would take three years to complete, how sure are you that there wouldn't be a flooding that would necessitate the opening of the flood gates? you cant entirely depend on the plant exits to maintain pressure behind the walls as the plunge pool and cofferdam are worked on.
Firstly it is not cost effective and the energy harnessed from there would only be used intermittently as those spillways are only open when the dam is at risk of over filling.
am sorry am not an expert, but this model either has its own cracks and plunge pools or it was not in-depth. i have been left with more questions than understanding for this whole thing.
How does someone discover a place when theres people already living there, worse more the people living there actually showed him him the place???🤷🏿♂️🤷🏿♂️🤦🏿♂️
The water does not always flow through the gates. They are only opened when there is enough water so that is not the issue to repair it you would still have to empty the plunge pool.
Dam was hastily and badly constructed in the first place. About 75 people were killed during the project. The Italian engineer in charge of the project committed suicide after every other dam he built collapsed.
