In the end the men poured enough concrete to pave a road 16 feet wide and 8 feet thick from San Francisco to New York City; 3, 250,000 cubic yards in the dam and 1,100,000 were used in supporting structures. A total of 4.3 million cubic yards of concrete went into creating the mighty Hoover Dam.
Concrete, concrete and more concrete it just kept coming, the concrete plants were always busy churning out approximately 5,300 cubic yards of concrete everyday. More than 5 million barrels of cement and 4.5 million cubic yards of aggregate went into the dam. Nothing about this endeavor was small, even the aggregate rock added to the cement was up to 9 inches in diameter.
A major problem for the engineers was the chemical reaction when you mix aggregate rock with cement called heat; if they opted for a straight poor the concrete would have heated so much that it was projected to take 125 years to set and during that time stresses would have created fissures and cracks. The solution was to poor the concrete in blocks 5 feet high; the smallest blocks were 25 feet x 25 feet and the largest were 25 feet x 60 feet.
Each block was numbered and lettered each block and never let a wet block touch another wet block. However, with the outside temperature reaching 130 degrees it was not enough to simply pour the concrete into individual blocks so each form also contained 1" thin-walled cooling coils made from steel pipe. In order to cool the concrete river water was pumped through the pipes and later cooled water from a refrigeration plant was circulated through the pipes.
Massive is the only way to describe the Hoover Dam and the only to fully experience the dam is to travel 524' into the canyon and view the Nevada power wing followed by A Walk on the Top tour. The facts on the dam are interesting and usually leave everyone speechless.
The Bureau of Reclamation states that the 4.63 million cubic yards of concrete in the dam, power plant and appurtenant works is enough to build a monument 100 feet square and 2-1/2 miles high; if you filled an ordinary city block with concrete it would rise higher than the Empire State Building (which is 1,250 feet); and, if all the materials used in the dam were loaded onto a single train, as the engine entered the switch yards in Boulder City, the caboose would just be leaving Kansas City, MO.
If the heat produced by the curing concrete could have been concentrated in a baking oven, it would have been sufficient to bake 500,000 loaves of bread per day for three years.
Joni MacLaine is the senior tour guide and trainer for Hoover Dam Fun Tours, Comedy on Deck Tours and Fun Time Vegas. She has written, spoken and been interviewed extensively on the dam. She is often referred to as “a dam encyclopedia”.
Concrete, concrete and more concrete it just kept coming, the concrete plants were always busy churning out approximately 5,300 cubic yards of concrete everyday. More than 5 million barrels of cement and 4.5 million cubic yards of aggregate went into the dam. Nothing about this endeavor was small, even the aggregate rock added to the cement was up to 9 inches in diameter.
A major problem for the engineers was the chemical reaction when you mix aggregate rock with cement called heat; if they opted for a straight poor the concrete would have heated so much that it was projected to take 125 years to set and during that time stresses would have created fissures and cracks. The solution was to poor the concrete in blocks 5 feet high; the smallest blocks were 25 feet x 25 feet and the largest were 25 feet x 60 feet.
Each block was numbered and lettered each block and never let a wet block touch another wet block. However, with the outside temperature reaching 130 degrees it was not enough to simply pour the concrete into individual blocks so each form also contained 1" thin-walled cooling coils made from steel pipe. In order to cool the concrete river water was pumped through the pipes and later cooled water from a refrigeration plant was circulated through the pipes.
Massive is the only way to describe the Hoover Dam and the only to fully experience the dam is to travel 524' into the canyon and view the Nevada power wing followed by A Walk on the Top tour. The facts on the dam are interesting and usually leave everyone speechless.
The Bureau of Reclamation states that the 4.63 million cubic yards of concrete in the dam, power plant and appurtenant works is enough to build a monument 100 feet square and 2-1/2 miles high; if you filled an ordinary city block with concrete it would rise higher than the Empire State Building (which is 1,250 feet); and, if all the materials used in the dam were loaded onto a single train, as the engine entered the switch yards in Boulder City, the caboose would just be leaving Kansas City, MO.
If the heat produced by the curing concrete could have been concentrated in a baking oven, it would have been sufficient to bake 500,000 loaves of bread per day for three years.
Joni MacLaine is the senior tour guide and trainer for Hoover Dam Fun Tours, Comedy on Deck Tours and Fun Time Vegas. She has written, spoken and been interviewed extensively on the dam. She is often referred to as “a dam encyclopedia”.
© 2006 by "DiscoveringArizona Inc." · All Rights Reserved · E-Mail: jayq@discoveringarizona.com
It took over 4,500 years for man to build a structure that would exceed the mass of the Great Pyramid of Egypt but Hoover Dam did it. This mammoth dam brought more than relief from an unmanageable river it also brought jobs and hope to people at a time when one out of every three men was standing in a bread line to feed his family. Every state in the union to supplied materials and men to build this concrete monster. Bottom dump buckets were used to drop 16 tons of concrete every 90 seconds 24 hours a day for 2 years.
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