Grand Coulee Dam :: Architecture Construction Dams Essays

Grand Coulee Dam Grand Coulee Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam on the Columbia River in Washington State, built by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser It is among the most famous dams in the United States. The reservoir it created is called the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Lake. The reservoir is named after the United States President who seemed to love dams and hydroelectric power and who was involved with the project through to the final completion of the dam. The dam was built as part of the Columbia Basin Project as a way to irrigate the desert areas of the Northwest United States. The dam started during the 1930s as a public works project and finished toward the beginning of World War Two. The initial construction plan was reconfigured during construction for more height. Its height was determined by the point at which the water from the reservoir began backing up into Canada. The scope and size of the dam is hard to comprehend. It is over a mile long and taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza, in fact , all the pyramids at Giza can fit within the base of the Grand Coulee Dam. The dam is so large that a truck at the base looks like a toy, this creates some perspective into the dam's true size. When the dam was completed in the early 1940s it was the largest dam in the world. The primary goal of the dam, irrigation, was forgotten as the war time need for electricity increased. Aluminum smelting was vital to the war effort. Aluminum smelting requires substantial amounts of electricity and hydroelectric power plants are often built to provide electricity for these smelts. The electricity was also used to produce uranium for the Manhattan Project. After the war ended the original goal of irrigation resumed. Additional dams, siphons and canals were constructed that turned the coulee into a vast supply network that allowed the desert to bloom. Today it is still the largest concrete dam in North America, as well as being the largest concrete structure in the United States with 11,975,521 cubic yards of concrete. The Dam is built on a massive granite foundation and stands at 550 ft tall which is about twice as tall as the statue of liberty, The reservoir has a capacity of 421 billion cubic feet of water, the dam releases about 110,000 cubic feet