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Octopusapult
2016-05-17, 12:28 AM
I know basically nothing about the insides of a dam. Could anyone help me out here? I just need to know how much space there'll be, and what parts of it are important for the sake of realism. I live in Indiana with practically no bodies of water around so taking a tour is essentially out of the question and most videos online are poor quality.

Mutazoia
2016-05-17, 02:19 AM
Take your pick.... (https://www.google.com/search?q=hydroelectric+power+plant+blueprint&espv=2&biw=1280&bih=923&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjona3dyODMAhXGxYMKHYRoDxEQsAQIGw&dpr=1)

Narrow Century
2016-05-17, 02:20 AM
I'm no expert, but I live in Portland, and there's a bunch of dams around.

It varies pretty widely, partially with size. The Hoover Dam is the most well known, but most of them have an elevation a fraction of the height. Most dams are going to be relatively low to water, with a couple of important external elements. First, there's going to be a system of locks allowing boats to move from one side to the other - assuming there's any river traffic. Second, a lot of dams have a fish ladder, which is more or less a series of artificial waterfalls that allow salmon to move upstream to spawn. Third, there's going to be a lot of infrastructure on the banks near the dam to carry and disburse all the power coming out of it - basically a really big power station, with high tension wires running from the dam to the shore.

Inside the dam, there's going to be all kinds of plumbing to deal with the variations on the river's flow, most of it can be abstracted. Most importantly, there are several shafts running through the base of the dam, where the extra pressure is used to drive the water through several large turbines - big, wheel-of-pain looking things that usually end up in a vast, long room together that runs most of the length of the dam. Lot of catwalks, walkways, switchboards, et cetera. Aside from that, some nondescript maintenance rooms, administration up top, and access corridors to the extra plumbing should do you fine.'

If there are any experts and I've made glaring errors, please have mercy. I've been to a couple dams, and if I saw this in a game, I wouldn't call foul, so it's probably fine.

Octopusapult
2016-05-20, 06:38 AM
Wow I think I couldn't have been less accurate in the game if I tried. Really wish I had more time before the game to check back here.

I mean it went well, nobody in the game was an expert. I don't know if any of them have ever even seen a hydroelectric dam in person before either. So it worked for the most part. But those cross sections and all that information would have been a huge help.

To sum up what I did, the dam was under too much pressure from the reservoir because it had been taken over by a militant faction and the engineers and regular maintenance crews couldn't come in and keep it together. A large storm was sweeping in and threatened to cause the whole thing to collapse. The players popped in just in time to flood the spillways and drain the reservoir a bit before the storm could come and cause a monumental collapse.

I have no idea if that's even feasible. But that's how it went more or less. (I'm not trying to shamelessly self promote, but the game journal is here (https://archfossil.wordpress.com/2016/05/19/ace-operation-hydra/) if anyone is curious about the full story.)

Thanks again for the help. I hope I didn't butcher it too badly. Everyone had fun, so that's what really counts, but I'd like to take some pride in a realistic approach.

Knaight
2016-05-23, 06:25 PM
To sum up what I did, the dam was under too much pressure from the reservoir because it had been taken over by a militant faction and the engineers and regular maintenance crews couldn't come in and keep it together. A large storm was sweeping in and threatened to cause the whole thing to collapse. The players popped in just in time to flood the spillways and drain the reservoir a bit before the storm could come and cause a monumental collapse.

It can happen. Small unmaintained cracks can combine with erosion processes in really nasty ways, and if those were fairly low down then it's entirely possible that the structure would be compromised at higher pressures, which correspond pretty much linearly to higher water levels*. So if damage accumulates because of lack of maintenance, then a storm raises the water level, there would be a problem. Flooding the lower spillway could solve that.

With that said, dams are usually designed with two spillways. There's the lower one, which often has pretty low discharge, and then there's where the water just goes over the dam, which has really high discharge. The lower one might not be able to actually keep up with the storm all that well. Still, it's reasonably plausible.

*Technically liquid water is compressible so there's a slight nonlinear relation, but it's a completely negligible effect in all but the highest precision work, and even then you're not seeing it for a dam. A water column in the ocean, sure.

Octopusapult
2016-05-24, 12:04 AM
It can happen. Small unmaintained cracks can combine with erosion processes in really nasty ways, and if those were fairly low down then it's entirely possible that the structure would be compromised at higher pressures, which correspond pretty much linearly to higher water levels*. So if damage accumulates because of lack of maintenance, then a storm raises the water level, there would be a problem. Flooding the lower spillway could solve that.

With that said, dams are usually designed with two spillways. There's the lower one, which often has pretty low discharge, and then there's where the water just goes over the dam, which has really high discharge. The lower one might not be able to actually keep up with the storm all that well. Still, it's reasonably plausible.

*Technically liquid water is compressible so there's a slight nonlinear relation, but it's a completely negligible effect in all but the highest precision work, and even then you're not seeing it for a dam. A water column in the ocean, sure.

Awesome, it sounds like I did alright then. I actually e-mailed a company called "Interior Dams" and asked them about it. They told me to take a tour of one. XD I might take these things too seriously.

olnaosam
2016-05-25, 12:20 AM
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