The World's Largest Roller-Compacted Concrete Dams
7. Yeywa Dam, Myanmar, 2,473,000 cu m of RCC. Completed in 2010, the Yeywa Dam is located on the Myitnge River in central Myanmar. It is the first roller-compacted concrete dam in the country. Its 790-MW capacity hydropower plant is the largest in Myanmar. Colenco Power Engineering Ltd. of Switzerland is the designer. The Myanmar Dept. of Hydropower, the owner, also acted as the general contractor. It is 134 m tall and 690 m long.
Courtesy of Sinohydro
2. Tha Dan Dam, Thailand, 4,900,000 cu m of RCC. Formally called the Khun Dan Prakan Chon Dam, it is 93 m tall and 2,720 m long. Tractebel Engineering handled preliminary design and works supervision. TEAM Consulting Engineering and Management Co. Ltd. did the final design and supervised the construction. CCVK Joint Venture was the contractor; CCVK consisted of China National Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Corp., China Electric Power Technology Import & Export Corp., Vichitbhan Construction Co. Ltd. and Krung Thon Engineers Co. Ltd. The Royal Irrigation Dept. is the owner. It was built using four Power Curber 8700s, which worked 20 hours per day for over three years to slipform the upper and lower dam faces. The dam, located on the Nakon Nayok River about 200 kilometers north of Bangkok, serves to reduce damage from seasonal flooding and provide a constant supply of water for irrigating crops. Construction began in 1993 and was completed in 2005. It has no hydropower component.
Courtesy of Nakon Nayok Province
9. Guangzhao Dam, China, 2,420,000 cu m of RCC. Situated on the Beipan River in Guizhou Province, the 200-m-tall, 410-m-long dam was completed in 2008. Its power-generation capacity is 1,040 MW. The Guiyang Institute of Hydropower Reconnaissance and Design and the China Hydropower Consultant Group were the designers.
Courtesy of Guizhou Quianyuan Power Co. Ltd.
10. Jin�anqiao Dam, China, 2,400,000 cu m of RCC. Completed in 2011, the 160-m-tall, 640-m-long Jin�anqiao Dam is located on the Jinsha River�the upper stretch of the Yangtze River�in Yunnan Province in southwest China. Its power-generation capacity is 2,400 MW. Built by a joint venture of Hanergy Holding Group, Jinsha River Hydropower Development Co. Ltd. and Yunnan Development & Investment Co. Ltd., it cost $2.2 billion. It is the world�s largest private hydropower plant. (Hanergy Holding Group is the world�s largest thin-film solar-power company and also has interests in wind power.)
Courtesy of Hanergy
3. Guandi Dam, China, 2,970,000 cu m of RCC. The 168-m-tall Guandi Dam, completed in 2013, is situated on the Yalong Jiang River, a tributary of the Yangtze in Sichuan Province in southwest China. With a power-generation capacity of 2,400 MW, it was an engineer-procure-construct project by Hydrochina Chengdu Engineering Corp. and Sinohydro No. 7. Ertan Hydropower Development Co. is the operator.
Courtesy of Power Plants Around the World
4. Longkaikou Dam, China, 2,840,000 cu m of RCC. Completed in 2013, the 113-m-tall Longkaikou Dam is located on the Jinsha River�the upper stretch of the Yangtze River�in Yunnan Province in southwest China. Its power-generation capacity is 1,800 MW. Huaneng Power and Huadian Power were the developers.
Courtesy of Power China Huadong
6. Kalashuke Dam, China, 2,520,000 cu m of RCC. Situated on the E�erqisi River�also called the Irtysh�in Xinjiang Province in northwest China, near the border with Mongolia, it was completed in 2014. It is 121 m tall and 1,570 m long. With an installed capacity of 140 MW, its primary function is to store water for the irrigation of farms in a very arid region.
Courtesy of Google Maps
1. Longtan Dam, China, 4,952,000 cu m of RCC. Located on the Hongshui River in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southwest China, it was completed in 2009. It is 216 m tall and 849 m long. The construction involved the excavation of 20 million cu m of material. Its installed capacity is 6,426 MW. It is owned by Longtan Hydropower Development Co. Ltd. and cost $4.2 billion to build. The dam contains seven surface spillways, two bottom outlets and an underground power station and features two ship locks to allow navigation. Its construction displaced 80,000 Guizhou Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region residents.
Courtesy of City of Hechi, Guangxi
5. Son La Dam, Vietnam, 2,677,000. Completed in 2012, the 138-m-tall, 1,000-m-long Son La Dam is located on the Black River. Hydroproject of Russia was the designer, and Song Da Corp., a Vietnamese state-owned contractor, built it. With a power-generation capacity of 2,400 MW, it cost $2 billion to construct. Vietnam Electricity is the owner. Seven Potain tower cranes�supplied by Minh Chi, a dealer for Manitowoc�were used on the project. The dam's construction displaced 91,000 ethnic minority people, the largest resettlement in Vietnam�s history.
Photo by Wikimedia Commons
8. Taum Sauk Dike, the U.S., 2,448,000 cu m of RCC. The Taum Sauk Upper Reservoir Dike, atop Profitt Mountain in Missouri and originally built in 1963, was a 84-ft-tall, 6,562-ft-long concrete-faced, rockfilled structure. A 700-ft-long section failed in 2005 due to overtopping, destroying a state park and injuring three people. Part of a 450-MW pumped-storage project, it was owned by AmerenUE, which agreed to pay $177.35 million in compensation for the damage caused. Ameren rebuilt it as a roller-compacted concrete structure in 2010. At 6,652 ft long and 100 ft tall, the new dam encloses a 40-acre reservoir. Rizzo Associates Inc. was the designer. Built by a joint venture comprising ASI Constructors Inc. and Fred Weber Inc., it is North America�s largest roller-compacted concrete dam. Because it is ring�shaped, unlike most dams, and consists of nine monoliths with no abutments, the contractor used mobile telescoping conveyors to deliver concrete.
Courtesy of Ameren Missouri
This slideshow ranks the dams based on how much roller compacted concrete they contain, not their total volume; some of the dams contain sections of conventional concrete or rockfill.
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