Fraco Products Ltd was recently called upon with American Hydro,
a hydrodemolition company, to install mast climbers on a 220-foot-tall
dam in San Diego, CA to raise the height of the dam.
The San Vicente Dam needed two and three inches of its dry
side removed to create a bonding surface for 800,000 cubic yards
of new roller-compacted concrete and conventional concrete, which
will put the dam at a total of 337 feet high.
In order to complete these tasks, Fraco installed mast sections
on the inclined concrete face of the San Vicente Dam, but not
without slight complications.
"The first mast section plcement to the far left took
four days [to install] as the dam is not quite flat as it was
supposed to be; conditions changed as each 30-foot mast was flown
into place," said Tim Riley, Fraco's Southern California
representative.
"The second layout of mast took about two days with some
fine tuning of the custom shims. We installed the third mast section
in one day as we built the mast on the ground and copied the shim
and space brackets to match the second install."
After the three rails were in place, American Hydro came in
and started the concrete removal process. As each section was
worked on, the mast sections were moved to another area of the
dam. The process is expected to be completed by the end of April
2010, Fraco says.
The entire $568 million project is one-of-a-kind - the dam
raise is the tallest in the US and the tallest of its type in
the world. Work started in 2009 and is expected to finish up in
2012.
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