Hydroelectric dams play a vital role in providing clean and renewable energy. Ensuring their structural integrity through planned maintenance outages is a critical part of operating safely and efficiently. When maintenance or repairs are required for a dam’s spillway gate, it becomes crucial for operators to have a streamlined method for dewatering the structure. In the absence of established dewatering mechanisms for a spillway bay, the operation requires lowering the impoundment or fabricating bulkhead systems, yet traditional bulkhead solutions presented limitations in flexibility and adaptability to changing conditions. In the Pacific Northwest, a leading renewable power company was working to develop a specialized segmental bulkhead design tailored to one of their critical operations but required a manufacturing partner to bring the design to life.
