HOOVER DAM

1
HOOVER DAM

• By Project Monsters
• Presenters Nazimah Abdul Rahim
• Hakki Isik

2
HOOVER DAM

• Concrete dam in Black Canyon, on the border
  between Arizona and Nevada
• Named after Herbert Hoover, who played an
  important role in its construction
• Built by Six-Companies, Inc.
• Operated by Bureau of Reclamation of the US Dept.
  of the Interior
• Lake Mead is the reservoir constructed behind the
  dam

3
The Need for a Dam

• Turbulent Colorado River periodically flood vast
  areas of California and Arizona
• The flood destroyed canals built for irrigation
  and drinkable water
• Herbert Hoover proposed construction of the high
  dam to solve the problems

4
Who is Herbert Hoover?

• Was Secretary of Commerce under President
  Coolidge
• Graduated from Stanford University
• A successful mining engineer, humanitarian
• Elected as the 31st President of the United
  States

5
Questions That Were Raised

• What would be the location of the dam?
• Who would build the dam?
• How would the dam going to be financed?
• Which states would get the water and electricity?

6
Scope

• Construction of the high dam would control the
  periodic floods, store water for irrigation,
  municipal and industrial use
• The customers would be the people getting water,
  electricity from the dam

7
Resources

• 5200 workers on the construction with 3
  shifts/day
• 5 millions barrel of cement used in the concrete
• 9,000 tons of structured steel components
• 44,000 tons of large steel pipe and fittings
• Giant cooling towers

8
Time Management

• Hoover met with the 7 state governors
  (AZ,CA,CO,NV,NM,UT,WO) to work out suitable
  arrangement for their states use
• November 1922, Colorado River Compact was signed
• In 1928, the Congress passed the Boulder Canyon
  Act, allocating 175 million for the dam
  construction

9
Time Management

• Composite bid was accepted for 50 mil by Six
  Companies in March 6 1931
• Construction began in April 20 1931
• June 1931, sufficient housing facilities were in
  place
• Construction was completed in March 1, 1936
• The construction was completed 2 years ahead of
  schedule

10
Cost Management

• The most difficult part of the project period
  of Great Depression
• It cost a total of 165 million - 49 million to
  build the Hoover Dam
• Unskilled labor paid 4/day and minimum wage cost
  was lt6/hr
• Paid back over a period of 50 years to Federal
  Treasury by selling electricity

11
Project Management

• One of the biggest engineering project at that
  time - also the greatest testimony to functional
  organizations and old fashioned management
  control techniques
• Active management was left in 4 hands Henry J.
  Kaiser, Charles A. Shea, Felix Kahn and S.D.
  Bechtel

12
Project Management
13
Project Management

• Frank Crowe (a.k.a Hurry Up) worked under Shea
  acted as the man point between Board of Directors
  and the operations personnel
• It was Sheas responsibility to carry out the
  construction on time and budget
• Each department was headed by a manager and held
  accountable for their work

14
Project Management

• Dam construction was divided into 3 areas
• Diversion tunnels and penstocks
• Concrete arched structure
• Power plant

15
Problems

• Workers strike (August 1931) triggered by
  deaths of many of the workers wives and children
  due to extreme heat and lack of sanitation in the
  campsite area
• Huge dam size required a lot of cement and
  engineers predicted it would take 125 years to
  dry and cure
• Heat generated in the chemical rxns in the drying
  process would physically alter the landscape

16
Solutions to the Problem

• Housing facilities were built, known as Boulder
  City
• Giant cooling tower/plant built to cool the
  entire dam pumped ice water (37oF) at 1000
  gal/min as the concrete was poured
• With this approach, the dam was cooled in 20
  months

17
FAQs

• Height 726.4 ft
• Weight 6.6 million tons
• Total storage capacity 30.5 million acre ft
• Power generating capacity 2.8 million kW
• Has 17 generators
• Part of a system that provides water to over 25
  million people in Southwest United States