Dams & Hydro

The Ayvali HEPP will develop approximately 150 MW of electricity to be fed into the Turkish national grid. Özdogan Energy secured the license to develop the project, which includes an RCC gravity dam, 10 km of power tunnels and a 150 MW power station.  With construction starting in 2011, RCC placement was initiated in December 2012. Construction of the dam was undertaken by Özkar Construction, a subsidiary company of the Özdogan Group.

At the end of October 2013, 745 000 m³ of RCC had been placed and the dam had been raised to a height of 80 m. Despite placement being stopped due to cold weather in January and slowed during hot weather for June and July, average RCC production to date is approximately 68 000 m³ per month, with the peak month/average month = 1.85 and the peak month/peak day = 21. These figures reflect an efficient RCC production operation, particularly considering the lower levels of efficiency usually evident during early placement.

The dam is a 178 m high RCC gravity structure comprising 1,6 million m³ of RCC.  Although the dam is zoned, with higher strength RCC in areas of higher stress under seismic loading, the majority of the RCC initially comprised a high workability mix, with 50 kg cement + 110 kg of fly ash. As a result of high costs and supply reliability problems, however, this was subsequently replaced with a mix comprising 60 kg cement + 120 kg natural pozzolan, which indicates a 7 day accelerated curie compressive cylinder strength exceeding 15 MPa. Impoundment at the dam commenced in January 2015.

ARQ was involved in the project from feasibility planning with various roles including specialist structural analyses, instrumentation design, RCC mix design, RCC plant design assistance, RCC quality control assistance, construction advice and other inputs as RCC specialists for the design and construction.

Project details