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Construction of Yeywa Hydropower Project in Myanmar Focus on RCC Technology

Bauausfhrung der Yeywa Wasserkraftanlage in Myanmar mit dem Schwerpunkt Walzbeton-Technik
Francisco Ortega S.

Abstract
The Yeywa HEP (790 MW) is under construction at present in Myanmar. The RCC dam, first of its type in the country, is a 134 m high straight-gravity structure and has a total volume of 2.5 million m3. The construction was planned already during the design stage and a comprehensive training programme has been developed with the local staff. The use of local natural pozzolan led to an all-RCC dam design concept. Almost 1.0 million m3 of RCC have been placed in the first year.

Zusammenfassung
In Myanmar befindet sich gegenwrtig die Yeywa Wasserkraftanlage im Bau. Die Walzbetonmauer, die erste dieser Art im Lande, ist eine 134 m hohe Schwergewichtsstaumauer mit einem Gesamtvolumen von 2.5 Millionen m3. Die Bauausfhrung wurde bereits whrend der Entwurfsphase geplant, und fr die rtlichen Fachkrfte fand ein umfangreiches Ausbildungsprogramm statt. Die Verwendung des rtlich vorhandenen Naturpuzzolans ermglichte eine gnzliche Walzbetonausfhrung. Im ersten Jahr wurden so fast eine Million Kubikmeter Beton fertiggestellt.

Introduction

Yeywa RCC dam is among the largest and fastest RCC dams that have been built so far [1]. The capacity and specifications of the main construction equipment was prepared with the aim of achieving a high speed of construction with the use of local resources and taking into account the particular difficult site conditions. One key aspect for the success of the construction of Yeywa RCC dam has been the comprehensive training programmes made to the local staff during preparative works and initial stages of the construction. The RCC mix has a total cementitious material content of 220 kg/m3. The aggregate is crushed limestone from a quarry source near the dam area and a natural pozzolan available in the country has been researched, tested and finally used as a replacement of 66% of the total cement content. The concrete mix is designed to withstand by itself the strength and impermeability requirements of the structure. This has made it possible to design a simple mass concrete structure with very little interferences so that the dam could be built rapidly. It is planned to complete the RCC in the main dam by end of year 2008, with a total placing time of just 34 months. The capacity of the concrete plant is ca. 500 m3/hour and cooling plants have been installed to pre-cool the RCC down to a maximum of 18C at the mixer delivery point. The RCC transpor-

340 tation systems involve the use of high-speed conveyor system, steel chutes and trucks that are adapted to the different stages of construction in the dam. The supply of materials and concrete is under Myanmar local Contractors responsibility and the RCC placement is been made under a separate contract with a Chinese Contractor.

2
2.1

Construction Planning
General Planning

The first detailed construction planning for the RCC at Yeywa HPP was made back in August 2001. At that time four different scenarios were looked at. The peak RCC monthly production in the different scenarios ranged from 90,000 to 225,000 m3/month. Two of the four cases were selected for a more detailed analysis. For each of these two scenarios the construction stages of the dam and the construction sections were studied according to the specific site conditions and river diversion arrangements. The construction time for the 2.5 million m3 RCC volume was respectively 34 and 70 months. Finally the fastest option (RCC in 34 months) was selected to be included in the Tender Documents that were issued in July and October 2002 for the concrete production and conveying systems respectively. 2.2 Lay-out of Site Installations

A main input to establish the methods of construction was the river diversion scheme and the protection during wet seasons of the powerhouse located at the left bank. A longitudinal concrete cofferdam (LIC) was built in advance with CVC in order to give such protection. RCC is placed at either side of this structure in different seasons and up to certain elevations depending on the river floods regime. The LIC was a good opportunity to reach the dam at a central section by a typical high-speed conveyor system that could be installed on top of it. The total length of the conveyor system is ca. 400 m determined by the position of the concrete plants (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Overview of Yeywa RCC dam under construction

341 An area for the location of the concrete plants and associated items was selected at the downstream side on the left abutment. Despite this area was not as large as it would have been advisable to locate the plants, stockpiles and silos, a comprehensive analysis was developed in order to achieve the optimised lay-out that has been finally implemented. This is one of the most efficient and optimised plant lay-out that has been arranged in any RCC dam project built so far (Figure 2).

Figure 2: RCC concrete production facilities at Yeywa Due to the limited space available in this area, the main stockpiles for aggregates had to be located further downstream, at an intermediate point between the concrete plants and the quarries, which are located further downstream at both sides of the river. The plants for the production of CVC concrete are also located in the same area than the RCC plants and this makes possible to use the same cooling plants and other auxiliary facilities.

3
3.1

Construction Methods. Plants & Equipment

Aggregates Production & Stockpiles

Three crushing plants have been installed by three different local Contractors (MSP, HTCT and AW) in order to reach the specified production of 150,000 ton/month. All three have a similar arrangement and this consist on a primary jaw crusher, a secondary impact or cone crusher and a vertical shaft impact crusher (VSI) at tertiary position. These types of crushers were selected with the main goal of improving the shape of the particles. The VSI crushers were also selected as optimum equipment for this kind of material to produce enough quantity and quality of fine aggregate. The crushing plants are operating in a dry process in order to incorporate in the

342 RCC mix all limestone filler available. The optimization of the aggregate quality led to a significant reduction in the water content of the mixes, and as a consequence to a reduction in the content of cement (ca. 40 kg/m3 of cement were replaced by natural pozzolan in the final set of mixes). The total capacity of the aggregate stockpile is ca. 1,0 million ton distributed in the different sizes: 40-20, 20-10, 10-5 and 5-0 mm. The stockpile is managed and controlled directly by the Owner (DHPI). The transportation of the aggregate from the main stockpile to the concrete plant area is made also by DHPI with dump trucks. 3.2 Concrete Plant & Cooling Facilities

Each size of aggregate is delivered by the dump-trucks onto receiving hoppers and conveyed to the active stockpile of aggregate at the concrete plant. The capacity of this storage is ca. 50,000 ton. The coarse aggregate is then cooled to a maximum temperature of 10C in a cooling gallery where the material is spread with cold water at ca. 4C. This water is then recycled and cleaned in sedimentation tanks before it is cooled again. The total capacity of the water chillers is ca. 3.5 million kcal/hour and the length of the cooling gallery is 150 meters. The fine aggregate is conveyed from the active stockpile directly to the inline silo above the batching plants. The pre-cooling facilities are completed with a 200 ton/day ice plant and associated storage and handling equipment, and in addition chilled water is used for the remaining mixing water in the concrete mixer. The management of the whole cooling system is led and operated by the local Contractor HTCT so that the resources and energy is efficiently used to achieve the specified concrete temperature at all times. The concrete plant consist on four twin-shaft batch type mixers, each with a capacity of 3-m3 per batch of consolidated concrete. The theoretical peak production of this system is 4x125 m3/hour and the practical output achieved for each plant with the conditions at Yeywa has been 110 m3/h. Below the four mixers a special delivery system has been designed to allow discharge of the mixer either to trucks or to a reclaim conveyor that feed the RCC at a continuous rate to the main high-speed conveyor system. The concrete plant and all associated items have been supplied by Liebherr of Germany. The concrete production area is completed with a large storage of cementitious materials. In total ca. 6,500 ton of natural pozzolan and 3,500 ton of cement are kept in steel silos. The silos are connected with the concrete plant with heavy-duty blowing systems provided of stand-by units and easy interconnection between the different units [2]. 3.3 Concrete Delivery Systems

The main delivery system of RCC to the dam is the high-speed conveyor system that has been designed and manufactured in China by CGGC, the Contractor selected for the dam construction. The belt is 1,000 mm wide and runs at a design speed of 4 m/s. The conveyor is supported on self-raising posts that are adjusted in height with the progress of the dam construction stages. The final element of this system is a swinger conveyor that loads the continuous flow of concrete onto the dump-trucks that are operated on the lift.

343 In some stages of the construction steel chutes at 45 inclination and with a maximum vertical height of 35 meters have also been used for the delivery of concrete to the placement area. This system has been typically used in China in the past and has proven good performance when operated with this kind of high-paste RCC mixes that are rather cohesive and do not segregate. 3.4 Concrete Placement

The RCC is spread with Caterpillar D5 type laser-guided dozers and compacted with 10.5 ton static weight vibratory rollers. The density above 99% of the theoretical maximum is achieved and a large amount of paste is relatively easy brought up to the lift surface during compaction. This paste has been designed with a high retardation (initial set of the mix is ca. 20 hours). A uniform and permanent water curing of the exposed surfaces guarantee that the surface layer is still fresh when the next layer is placed on top. As a consequence of this process, very good tensile strength across lift joints (the critical design parameter) have been achieved without the need of any treatment or bedding mixes placed between RCC layers. The transverse contraction joints are created by inserting a galvanized steel plate as crack inducer at the joint plane after RCC has been fully compacted. The watertightness of the contraction joints is guaranteed by a traditional system of two waterstops and drain embedded in the facing concrete. This facing concrete is RCC + in-situ added grout that is then vibrated by immersion vibration against the formwork. Cores through this facing concrete have shown no difference in the properties of the core RCC consolidated by the vibratory rollers and the facing grout-enriched RCC. The same system is used as interface between the RCC and the rock abutments or any other embedded structure (galleries, instrumentation, access shafts, etc.).

Training

The success of Yeywa RCC dam would have not been possible without the combined effort of all parties involved in the training and continuous exchange of knowledge and experience that has been transmitted to the local personnel in charge of the operation and maintenance of the plant and equipment. Never before a project of this kind with such amount of industrialized process had been carried out in this country and we were all aware of the risks involved in such approach. Several training sessions were arranged during the years previously to start of the construction with the local Contractors and the Engineers and staff from the Owner, not only in Myanmar but also abroad. The construction of several full-scale trials with a total volume of ca. 4,000 m3 were a great opportunity to test the new materials and in addition to train the teams and test the construction procedures that have been later on implemented in the main dam.

Conclusions

Despite the lack of previous similar experience in the country, Yeywa RCC dam is being successfully built in Myanmar as part of a large Hydro Project. The construction involves a great proportion of local resources. A detailed construction planning during the design stage, the use of well proven suppliers of plants and equipment and a comprehensive training programme are some of the main key-aspects directly related with this success.

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Literature
[1] Kyaw, W.; Zaw, M.; Dredge, A.; Fischer, P.; Steiger, K.: Yeywa Hydropower Project, an Overview. Proceedings of the Symposium on Water Resources and Renewable Energy Development in Asia, 2006 [2] Koe, A.; Ortega, F.; Zaw Naing, A.; Knoll, K.: Construction Planning, Concrete Production Equipment and Cooling Plants at Yeywa HPP, Myanmar. Proceedings of the Symposium on Water Resources and Renewable Energy Development in Asia, 2006

Acknowledges
The author would like to give grateful thanks to DHPI and HTCT for the permission to publish this article.

Authors Name and Affiliation:

Francisco Ortega S., M.Sc, Ber.-Ing. FOSCE Consulting Engineers Director Lorentzenstr.30, 23843 Bad Oldesloe Germany f.ortega@fosce.com