Sennar Dam
The Sennar Dam is a dam in the Blue Nile near the town of Sennar in the east of Sudan, which was built in 1914-1925 for the irrigation of the Gezira project.
Description
The total of 3,025 m long Sennar Dam consists of a 1,750 m long concrete gravity dam with a straight floor plan that is bordered on the shores of 445 m or 830 m long Erdschüttdämmen with masonry cores. The dam has a maximum height of 40 m above the deepest foundation. It consists of a dry stone masonry cement mortar was used in the granite from a village not far distant quarry and cement from a cement factory built for the dam construction. Your foot is 27 m, its crown is 7 m wide. On the crown drive two large cranes to operate the gates. Instead of the originally present two-lane road drove a railroad over the Sennar Dam.
The dam has 80 gates, a small power plant with 15 MW and two each 107 m wide outlet control for two 60 m wide irrigation canals, which together have an outflow of 354 m³ / s. If all the gates of the dam are open to more than the calculated highest tide of the Blue Nile can happen.
The reservoir originally had a volume of 800 million cubic meters, which should have been reduced by sedimentation but at 500 million m³. To slow down the sedimentation, the reservoir is drained once a year at the rising tide to substantially flush out the sediments.
The two channels are used for irrigation of the Gezira project. They extend the natural gradient almost linearly over 57 km to the north, where they are performed on separate lines in the following sections.
History
The construction of the Sennar Dam was begun in 1914 by the British, but did not get beyond the building site, when the First World War interrupted further work. 1919, the work continued in 1921 but again had to be canceled because the available funds were exhausted by price increases of construction materials. 1922 S. Pearson & Sons, Ltd.. , The company of Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, with responsibility for the further construction work. In July 1925, the Sennar Dam was completed. The planning of the Sennar Dam was created by Sir Murdoch Macdonald, the adviser to the Egyptian Ministry of Construction, the construction management ( Engineer) had OL Prowde.