First Baihetan Hydropower Station's Dam Sections Complete Concreting

Concreting of the first dam sections of the Baihetan Hydropower Station in Southeast China's Sichuan province, the world's largest hydropower project under construction, was completed on Nov 26.

The core part of the hydropower project, the dam is responsible for water retention and flood discharge. The station's dam is a 300-meter ultra-high concrete double-curved arch dam with the highest dam peak of 289 meters and a complicated structure.

A total of 8 million cubic meters of concrete is estimated to have been used in building the dam which has 31 sections. Concreting of the main body of the dam started in April 2017.

China Three Gorges Corporation, contractor of the station, has developed several innovative technologies to guarantee high-quality, safe and highly-efficient construction.

A smart building information management platform was launched to govern the work.

The platform is capable of analyzing real-time construction progress and controlling various systems to switch operating status automatically based on temperature, wind speed and deformation data collected by monitoring devices installed on the dam.

It's worth mentioning that no break has ever appeared on the dam since the concreting thanks to the key mass concrete thermal crack control technology which also improves China's competitiveness in the hydropower industry.

With a total installed capacity of 16 million kilowatts, the first generator units of the Baihetan Hydropower Station are scheduled to begin operations in July 2021.

Workers celebrate completion of concrete pouring of the first dam sections of the Baihetan Hydropower Station in Sichuan province. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

An aerial view of the dam construction site of the Baihetan Hydropower Station in Sichuan [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

(Executive editor: Wang Ruoting)