Systems Analysis And Design, Irrigation, And Water Supply At Hoover Dam

Discuss about the Systems Analysis and Design, Irrigation in agricultural field, as well as water supply for the households. It is also a major tourist attraction center, witnessing up to one million guests of the total seven million tourists annually.

The Hoover Dam is located in the region of Black Canyon and is situated along the River Colorado in the United States. Its construction began in the year 1930 and came to a completion close to 6 years later. Also referred to as the Boulder Dam, It is a curve Dam that has got the most concrete elevation within the United States. The dam is utilized for controlling the flood and controlling the sediment, it is also used in generation of hydroelectric power, Irrigation in agricultural field, as well as water supply for the households. It is also a major tourist attraction center, witnessing up to one million guests of the total seven million tourists annually.

The research carries out an investigation of the processes of design that were carried out for the Hoover Dam. The preliminary design is mainly concerned with investigating the dam’s necessity all through the project development. It also outlines the functional examinations, operation estimation, recognition and system arrangement, the concept of support as well as maintenance.

A pictorial illustration of the Hoover Dam while under construction is as below;

This is a stage of any given project that involves generating a noteworthy concept level of design that is meant to play the role of complementing to the project that is to be carried out. During this stage, assumptions are made that out of all the available choices or options, considerations have already been made and a decision to settle on a certain project has been arrived at. The project settled has been determined to certify the financial, monetary and environmental criteria. The Hoover Dam construction began in February 1930. The construction works were performed by the state commission for streams and water supply. The main motivation behind its construction is that River Colorado, being one of the largest and unusual rivers in the world, would occasionally break its banks during spring and would the flood the zone. A lot of consultations were therefore made on how to handle the issue, thus the construction of the dam.

Once the preliminary design activities have been completed, there are a number of aspects that have to be put into consideration to organize the detailed design. The aspects for consideration can be expressed in the below diagram;

The major design specifications for the construction of the Hoover Dam include the following;

• It has a height of 221 m
• It is close to 379 m wide.
• Has a thickness pf 379 m at its base and close to 203 m at its top.
• The construction period lasted close 4.5 years.
• The initial design and construction were all set out in the year 1930

River diversion

Before beginning the construction, a proper planning for all the perspectives for working and living within the construction site had to be carried out. Therefore the workers and the engineers had the obligations to organize every part of the project which includes the navigating of the river to give room for the construction of this dam. The engineers also checked at the climate and the soil where the dam was to be allocated. The general arrangement for the construction of the dam was to drive the tunnels via the dividers in the dam location and channel River Colorado through the tunnels.

Once the watercourse was directed in the location of the dam, workers were capable of exhuming the location as well as the construction of the power plant and the dam. The valley restriction spread the operation of construction up and down the stream and the huge of river fluctuation resulted to the stream preoccupation works remarkably challenging. The engineers in charge of operations made 4 tunnels of diversion, of these four, 2 on every side of the Colorado River as well as around the site where the dam is to be constructed. The four burrows are meant to serve other purposes when they are not needed for redirection. The two external tunnels were basically for the huge spillage outlet in the dam. Massive pipes are the inserted within the internal tunnel to help in carrying water from the reservoir to the point of control, and this is achieved by the outlet valves put under the dam. ´The construction of the Hoover dam or any dam cannot be undertaken perfectly if the naturally river is not diverted out of its natural course for some period of time while the dam is still under the operation.  

Detailed Design

Penstock design

Penstock is pie like tunnel always employed in the transportation of water from the reservoir to the power house, therefore for this design, it is very important to consider its design. Installation of the penstock is exceptionally carried out by big pipes that carry water to supply the power house at a very high pressure which can rotate the power. This penstock was constructed in 3-inch plate steel pipe to enhance its durability and strength during the operation. In order to manufacture and transport the finished pipe segment to the dam location, some uncommon gear was required. There was introduction of materials such as planers, rollers, x-ray equipment as well as welding materials that were used to carry out analysis of the welds. Besides the introduction of the penstock channels, the construction of the concrete placement was also being carried out at the same time. It is possible to obtain the friction losses for the penstock this can be achieved through the formula below;

hf= f()1

Where:

f - Friction constant

v - Velocity flow of water

L – The penstock length

D – Penstock diameter

This is called the Darcy Formula.

During early stages of the construction and design of the dam, groundwater as well as the underground rocks must be dealt with at this early stages tom give room for a perfect and professional construction of the dam. In order to construct the dam’s concrete establishment on the walls of the dam, it was important to dispose of the amassed misfortune soil till when the bedrock soil is reached (Melosi, 2013). This was carried to ensure that a good amount of volume required for the dam is attained. Clearance of underground soli were literally done through digging the site. The purge vital foundation shake of the dam location had a protection with grout. A number of gaps were designed within the canyon and the divider. Any depression were also to be involved in the gout. (McBride, 2012) This was performed in order to develop a steady shake and also due to the anticipation of water from leaking through the canyon shake. This was also to reduce the rising weight of water from leaking below the dam (Stevens, 2013).

Spillage

The use of two spillways was employed in order to help prevent the overtopping of the dam. The entrance of the spillway was located behind each bolster, which runs to the parallel canyon dividers. The ways of entry are raised and discouraged subordinate on the water power that is within the lake and the flooding situations (Melosi, 2013). Water that streams over the spillway will fall into the spillway metros and will with some interface to the burrow adjustment that is externally before finally returning to several channels of the dam.

An illustration of the spillage and other related parameters is as shown below;

In order to obtain the Hoover Dam storage energy. The formula illustrated below is applied.

Q=V× H × ρ × η × g . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

River diversion

Where;                        gravity

V- Water volume

ρ- Water density

H- Head pressure elevation

η- System efficiency

This will help find the storage capacity of the dam.

In order to determine the daily power levels (kWh/day) that is required to pump a given amount of water on a daily basis, the following formula can be applied (DuTemple, 2013).

P_elec=  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Where

Q- The water quantity

H- Head pressure

P_elec- electrical power (in watts)  

η- System operation efficiency.

An illustration of the final design of the Hoover dam in Colorado River is as shown below;=

For any given project development, it is quite important to perform an elaborative framework test for the stated project (Editors, 2012). This will help all the participants, including the client and the developers to make a determination of whether the venture will achieve the stated security benchmarks (Rocca, 2011). This will also help reduce the chances of occurrence of a hazardous event (Wolf, 2014). A system test that is properly performed as required will act as the basis on which assessments on whether the project complies with the intended objectives. This idea was put into practice by all the participants that were involved in the Hoover Dam construction (Vilander, 2011). They came up with a need to increase the spillway capacity. Such a need would warranty achievement of a worthy hazard level when compared to the modern safety requirements for constructing a dam.

The main idea of constructing the Hoover Dam was to ensure an inclusion of a number of highlights that would the whole project is perfectly optimized (Billington, 2017). The dam has been beneficial since it has a lot of uses. It is commonly used for water conservation, water supply for both industrial and residential uses, system handle and also for the generation of hydroelectric power (Rose, 2015). The dam is also consistently maintained to ensure that it meets its uses. Being that it is one of the largest dams within the country, its capacity therefore helps guarantee enough water for use and preservation.

The process of optimization involves ensuring that the system fully utilizes the profitability of any given project. The Hoover Dam consists of a water reservoir that is actually the largest within the Colorado waterway framework (Company, 2013). The dam equally has a very noteworthy bank. The dam is therefore able to accommodate up to 40% of the stream Colorado full capacity. The high water holding ability led to development of the Hoover control station that begun its operation around the year 1981. The control station has one 180MW hydro-generator and activities are controlled remotely by AGL hydro.

A power station constructed at the dam has the ability to perfectly carry out its operation without any restrictions. This is achieved when the water levels range from 434m to 484m beyond sea levels (Denton, 2012). The power station also makes releases that are used for irrigation. It also has a reservoir that acts a well-known trout fishery. It must be stated that the dam has greatly increased the food security levels within the region since it was commissioned. A better way to manage the flooding problem that has for long been a major issue in the region was finally put into practice (Miller, 2013).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the article articulates a critical analysis of the system design process of the Hoover Dam. The analysis is done on the preliminary design stage and the detailed design stage of the project. For the construction of the Hoover Dam, it was necessary to carry out proper system test in order to determine whether the project will be able to meet its intended objectives .The system test also enabled all the parties involved to carry out a risk analysis and put in place proper strategies that will ensure that the risks are reduced. During the system design process, it is also necessary to carry out an optimization process. Optimization process will ensure that the parties involved are able to reap full benefits from the Hoover Dam. This is because for any given large project or resource such as a dam, a lot of funds or resources are always invested on it and therefore there will be a lot of expectations to equally benefit from it. The paper has analyzed the strategies that were put in place in order to ensure that the full benefits are achieved.

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