Torrential rain in the Midlands and North of England that saw half a month's rain fall in one day caused such volumes of water to pass through the spillway of the Toddbrook Reservoir dam, above the town of Whaley Bridge in Derbyshire, that the protective concrete facing was damaged—badly enough to put the dam at risk of a full collapse.
Were the dam to fail this would be the first dam breech in the UK since 1925, when the Llyn Eigiau dam burst when its foundations failed in Wales, and its floodwaters overtopped the Coedty reservoir dam downstream, causing it to also fail and flood the valley at the cost of 16 lives. With emergency work underway and more rain forecast, this is still a very real possibility for the Whaley Bridge dam.
The dam above Whaley Bridge is an earthfill or embankment dam built in the 1830s using a mix of soil and gravel. The massive volume of water cascading down through the hills of Derbyshire's Peak District from the heavy rain meant the floodwaters increased the reservoir water level up to the dam's crest and onto the concrete spillway. Most dams are equipped with these concrete structures for the safe and controlled release of excessive flood water downstream.
But in Whaley Bridge the concrete spillway has collapsed under the torrent of high-speed waters, leaving a substantial hole across about a fifth of the face of the spillway. In fact, the current concrete spillway was installed at Whaley Bridge in around 1969 after it suffered similar damage in the winter of 1964.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 07 2019, @12:08PM (5 children)
We should stop using Portland cement and start using the limestone concrete the ancients used to build their monoliths or the concrete Romans used thousands of years ago. The only reason I can think of for continuing with the less durable material is as a jobs program due to the constant maintenance.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Wednesday August 07 2019, @04:11PM (1 child)
Do we know the chemical makeup of the concrete the Romans used? I thought I'd seen something about it, but at the time we didn't know how it was made.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 07 2019, @04:41PM
https://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/roman-cement/high-performance-roman-cement-and-concrete-high-durable-buildings/ [geopolymer.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday August 07 2019, @07:37PM (2 children)
Forgive me for not knowing crap about this and asking questions / venturing opinions based on guesswork.
Cost of manufacture / construction? And I'd presume that it takes ready access to limestone - modern transport may make that mostly irrelevant but not completely so when it comes to 6 and 7 figure projects. The summary reads like the spillway which was damaged had been in place 50 years. That's not a bad run for a concrete anything that sees erosion from usage. Generally and all else being equal I'd rather pay $1000 every fifty years then $10000 every two hundred years. Then again, with inflation maybe those numbers roll out even....
And that assumes that limestone concrete is superior in that particular application, which I'll grant prima facie but is also why we have Civil Engineers.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 07 2019, @08:12PM (1 child)
More like it would be cheaper (once supply chains are in place at scale) and lasts for 2,000 years. Then repairs amount to swapping out old lego pieces for a new one you just poured.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 09 2019, @08:34AM
The standard is it is about 15-35 percent more expensive than portland. *BUT* the chemistry is entirely different as is the preparation and some of the ingredients, causing the traditional concrete based industry to prefer to ignore it, and as a side effect for the politicians and building code drafters to be unwilling to do the necessary testing and add the necessary rules for it to be a common and acceptable building material. However university and individual tests of its material composition and structure cause it to compare favorably with common cement (some of the ultra-higher pressure variants are still stronger, but also more prone to cracking or requiring reinforment.)
I looking into geopolymer at the same time as biorock when Anemone55 released his pozzolanic type-s geopolymer recipe under the MIT license. There were a few additional variations by other individuals, the original 'egyptian' style using natron and other natural materials from the Nile and adjacent areas, and iochief's variations using I think it was lime. The low calcium variations are more saltwater resistant, as is the Roman cement, which used pozzolans from Mt Vesuvius if I remember correctly. The current source for Type-C and Type-S flyash is coal power plants which produced it in massive quantities, to the point of shipping containers worth of it selling for a few hundred dollars for multiple tonnes.
If you combine the two techniques and some good horticulture practrices, you can build anywhere for long term self sufficient activities.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday August 07 2019, @12:16PM (7 children)
Interesting to see what rates as record rainfall there, here "between 40mm and 50mm" is just a rather wet day. Down south, where it's a bit wetter, there are places that get 9,000mm of rain a year, or 27 feet for those who aren't metric yet. I remember that figure because in one place there's a sculpture - more like a tower - that represents the average yearly rainfall.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 07 2019, @03:34PM (5 children)
But why would you use MM for a volume where the unit M is more appropriate? I make that determination because the standard I'm aware of is to switch from MM to CM and then to M generally when the most significant bit is there, and you gave the English number in feet, not in inches. Is it truly that level of precision, or are you just poking fun at backwards states that count a spray-tanned anti-science pro-nepotism individual as head of state?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 07 2019, @05:46PM (3 children)
In meteorology rain is expressed in mm
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 07 2019, @09:20PM (2 children)
Ah, thank you for the response and answer. It was a serious question(for those who modded offtopic), if not phrased the best way. Yea, I'm the GP AC. I live in the Land of the Orange Man and am familiar with civilized units but not always standards. Around here, I've usually heard precipitation in fractional inches(rain but since it's rarely over 12 it doesn't reach the next unit) or feet, inches, and fractions(snow). I did live in England for a couple of years when I was very young, but do not recall forecasting nor reporting on the weather.
Now to wonder why meteorologists don't use increments. Oh well, off to duckduckgo and hope work's firewall won't stop me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 08 2019, @02:15AM (1 child)
A mm is already a fairly small unit. To put it into perspective a tenth of our Yankee inch is approximately 2.54 inches. Plus, it conveys an idea of volume, as 1 mm over 1 square meter is 1 liter of rain.
FWIW, another reason why meteorologists use tenths of an inch is that it also gives us a sense of volume. One tenth of an inch on a square foot of surface is roughly a cup, which allows easy conversion to gallons. For example, 2 inches of rain on a 3000 square foot roof is 2*10*3000/16 (3750) gallons, which is pretty close to the actual measure of 3740 gallons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 08 2019, @02:17AM
Ugh, I meant that first sentence to read "one tenth of our Yankee inch is approximately 2.54 mm."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 08 2019, @12:15AM
Each "millimetre" of rain is equivalent to one litre per square metre. Thus, if you left a square bucket outside with sides one metre by one metre, and "4 millimetres" of rain fell overnight... in the morning you would have four litres of rainwater in your bucket.
Really quite elegant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 07 2019, @07:38PM
If you live in the desert that's pretty significant. (And yes, deserts can sprout rivers seasonally or perenially in High Desert).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 07 2019, @12:33PM (4 children)
Vegetation [instagram.com] should have been an automatic fail.
(Score: 1) by Only_Mortal on Wednesday August 07 2019, @02:14PM (1 child)
Certainly the changes in farming practices in the hills of the Yorkshire Dales have been part of the issue there. I'd *guess* this may also be true for Derbyshire, given it's proximity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 07 2019, @04:14PM
Also could be something related to cutting flood prevention funds? Another great "saving" by David Cameron's austerity measures. It just gives and gives.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/28/flood-defences-row-uk-paying-price-david-cameron-tories-broken-promises [theguardian.com]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 07 2019, @02:25PM (1 child)
That town's quite probably fucked, of that I'm fairly sure. Dumping hardcore on top of (below, snigger) the failed, snapped, and ripped up section of the slipway is not even a partial fix, it's the temporary and partial de-escalation of catastrophic failure... From the look of the map, that's an important route through the Peak District (so-called, because of all of the mountains there (I deserve the funny upmod for that part more than the opening sentence)) commerce won't like it with the A5004 and the railway out of action, there'll need to be massive re-routing.
And I'll leave you with this:
"""
/More storms expected as risk to life near Whaley Bridge dam .../
Yahoo Entertainment - 4 days ago
Risk to life for residents near a damaged dam remains as emergency services continue efforts to stop its complete collapse. Whaley Bridge ...
"""
That's "entertainment", eh? Gee, I guess if we can laugh at your misfortune, you can laugh at us.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 07 2019, @02:30PM
Just declared safe [manchestereveningnews.co.uk]
(Score: 1) by Adam on Wednesday August 07 2019, @12:37PM (2 children)
Photos of the damage and repair effort here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7313495/RAF-drafts-Chinook-save-crumbling-Toddbrook-Reservoir-dam.html/ [dailymail.co.uk]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kazzie on Wednesday August 07 2019, @01:40PM (1 child)
Note in those pictures that there is erosion of the soil to the right of the spillway. Earlier pictures from the day of the rain show that some water was flowing down here, and not just along the spillway.
My personal theory is that this water that bypassed the concrete spillway eroded the earth beneath it, and caused the spillway to start subsiding.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 07 2019, @01:49PM
Plausible. Also see a video from the day before. [soylentnews.org]
Apart from the 4ft shrub in the above video sprouting between the concrete slabs right where the spillway collapsed?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday August 07 2019, @01:07PM (1 child)
That's one hell of a spillway, to travel back in time to be damaged before it was built. And not just temporally gifted, a freakin masochist as well, though Brits are sort of pervy.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday August 07 2019, @02:08PM
It is the land of the Tardis, after all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 07 2019, @01:11PM (2 children)
This happened in the UK so we here in the US will completely ignore it and pretend that our avoidance of infrastructure maintenance will keep away any failures or disasters.
We will never learn (not even after the I-35W bridge collapse [npr.org] 12 years ago in Minnesota).
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday August 07 2019, @01:30PM (1 child)
Better example. Dam in N. CA: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=northern+california+dam+spillway+collapse&t=lm&iax=images&ia=images [duckduckgo.com]
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday August 07 2019, @04:34PM
Currently, there's been more trouble with new construction. Such as, the pedestrian bridge in Florida.
In recent years, we've been building an awful lot of infrastructure that someday may be too burdensome to maintain. Lately, the DFW area has been mad for highway bridges. Got all these new toll lanes that are entirely elevated. The bridge work goes on and on for miles.
And they've been upgrading the major interchanges, such as the Texas state highway 360 interchange with I30. Admittedly, to change highways there, the old interchange is an embarrassing slog through as many as 2 traffic lights, as well as lots of backtracking. You'd think to go from southbound 360 to westbound I30 would be a simple right turn, but no. Officially, you exit at the street before I30, cross it at grade through a stoplight, go under I30, turn left at the next light, go under 360 and east about a quarter mile, then curve left, go over I30, then another left to point you westwards and then you get to merge with I30, passing under 360 again after merging. It's actually faster to ignore the signs and turn right at that first light, taking that cross street west to the next interchange with I30. The new one is going to be the latest in interchange fashion, the stack interchange, of which the High Five in Dallas seems to be somewhat famous for being among the first to have five levels.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday August 07 2019, @02:36PM (2 children)
> Concrete Infrastructure Demands Maintenance
Say, send an engineer to inspect said infrastructure regularly. If it fails the inspection then fix/decommission. This was the schedule of maintenance in the case of Whaley Bridge. What is the article saying? That we should decommission perfectly good infrastructure just because it is old?
(Score: 3, Informative) by isostatic on Wednesday August 07 2019, @03:32PM (1 child)
It is inspected regularly and was fully drained and had various fixes as recently as 2010.
The dam is going to be completely rebuilt.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday August 08 2019, @10:58AM
Last major inspection was November 2018