Beginning March 2019, the Dufferin Concrete Peterborough plant has supplied concrete to EBC Inc. for three project sites on the Trent Severn Waterway. The project consists of the reconstruction of three dams.
The Dam at Lock 23 Otonabee is located in the very north of the City of Peterborough. Lock 23 is part of a run of 5 locks that take boaters from Lakefield to Peterborough along the Otonabee River. This site also has an intake for the hydro power generating facility, run by Peterborough Utilities, located downstream at Lock 22. This major project will see the full replacement of the dam with a new structure. Not only will this work provide a new dam with an expected lifespan of more than 60 years, it will also reduce leakage and increase the safety of water management operators and the public.
Douro Dam at Lock 24 is a concrete dam that was constructed over 90 years ago. This project will include the design and construction of a new dam. This will eliminate leakage and make it safer for operators to make water level changes, ultimately improving water management capability on the Otonabee River.
Sawers Creek Dam at Lock 25 is a concrete dam that was constructed over 80 years ago. This project will include the design and construction of a new dam. This will eliminate leakage and make it safer for operators to make water level changes, ultimately improving water management capability on the Otonabee River.
Multiple pours for retaining walls, piers and spillways were completed from 50 m3 to 400m3, and Phase 1 was finished just before the deadline of March 31. Phase 2 is underway for the Otonabee and Douro dams and the second phase for the Sawers Creek Dam will continue through the winter of 2021.
Dufferin Concrete Technical Services (Andrei Muresan and his team) in collaboration with our R&D division (Bill Gong and his team) advised the client and the project owner to allow for a change in cementing materials to achieve the project specification on heat of hydration. The specification called for low heat cement to be used due to the elements being poured (concrete ranged up to 2m in thickness), the peak temperature requirement was a maximum 65 degrees Celsius. Our team proposed and demonstrated the use of high % of slag cement combined with GU to achieve these requirements. This involved adiabatic testing to model the concrete mix performance.
Dufferin Concrete continues to work closely with EBC Inc. to manage the three individual sites and ensure coordinated scheduling of the pours.
