El Atazar Dam is an arch dam built near

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on the Lozoya River, very close to where the Lozoya joins the Jarama. The curved design of the dam is optimum for the narrow

gorge A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tend ...

in which it was built to retain water in the

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

. Arch dams are thin and require less material to construct than other dam types. When the dam was built, the decision was made to use the dam to store and regulate water only and not to provide energy. Construction started on the dam in 1968 and finished in 1972.

Design

The dam is 134 m (440 ft) high and 52.3 m (171.6 ft) wide at the foundation. The reservoir capacity is 424,000,000 m³ (344,000 acre feet). It is a double

curvature In mathematics, curvature is any of several strongly related concepts in geometry that intuitively measure the amount by which a curve deviates from being a straight line or by which a surface deviates from being a plane. If a curve or su ...

concrete arch buttress design.

Problems

Monitoring of the dam revealed abnormal movement. Although dams normally move, the left side of the El Atazar Dam was moving more than the right because a support built on the dam's right made that side less flexible. In 1977 a crack was noticed in the dam. By 1979 the crack had grown to 46 m (150 ft) in length and was repaired. Inspection in 1983 revealed that the settling in the foundations and the movements of the dam had caused fracturing in the rock, resulting in significantly increasing the foundation's permeability. The crack has been treated and since then the problems have abated.

Power plant

The dam supports a hydroelectric power plant with a nameplate capacity of 9,56 MW. Its annual generation lies between 18,66 (2012) and 44,49 (1998) GWh. The power station contains 2 Francis turbine-generators with 4,78 MW (5,4 MVA) each. The turbine rotation is 500 rpm. The hydraulic head is 56 m. Maximum flow per turbine is 8 m³/s.

Gallery

Image:Después del embalse del Atazar.jpg Image:El Atazar dam view01.jpg Image:El Atazar dam view06.jpg Image:El Atazar Aerial View.JPG

Notes

External links

How is the way to build a Dam ?

Sociedad Española de Presas y Embalses
profile {{DEFAULTSORT:Atazar Dam Dams in Spain Hydroelectric power stations in Spain Arch dams Buildings and structures in the Community of Madrid Dams completed in 1972 Reservoirs in the Community of Madrid