The Aswan Low Dam or Old Aswan Dam is a gravity
masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units, which are often laid in and bound together by mortar; the term ''masonry'' can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are bricks, building ...
buttress dam A buttress dam or hollow dam is a dam with a solid, water-tight upstream side that is supported at intervals on the downstream side by a series of buttresses or supports. The dam wall may be straight or curved. Most buttress dams are made of reinfor ...
on the
Nile River in
Aswan
Aswan (, also ; ar, أسوان, ʾAswān ; cop, Ⲥⲟⲩⲁⲛ ) is a city in Southern Egypt, and is the capital of the Aswan Governorate.
Aswan is a busy market and tourist centre located just north of the Aswan Dam on the east bank of the ...
,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
. The dam was built at the former
first cataract
The Cataracts of the Nile are shallow lengths (or whitewater rapids) of the Nile river, between Khartoum and Aswan, where the surface of the water is broken by many small boulders and stones jutting out of the river bed, as well as many rocky ...
of the Nile, and is located about 1000 km up-river and 690 km (direct distance) south-southeast of
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
. When initially constructed between 1899 and 1902, nothing of its scale had ever been attempted; on completion, it was the largest masonry dam in the world. The dam was designed to provide storage of annual floodwater and augment dry season flows to support greater irrigation development and population growth in the lower Nile. The dam, originally limited in height by conservation concerns, worked as designed, but provided inadequate storage capacity for planned development and was raised twice, between 1907 and 1912 and again in 1929–1933. These heightenings still did not meet irrigation demands and in 1946 it was nearly over-topped in an effort to maximize pool elevation. This led to the investigation and construction of the
Aswan High Dam
The Aswan Dam, or more specifically since the 1960s, the Aswan High Dam, is one of the world's largest embankment dams, which was built across the Nile in Aswan, Egypt, between 1960 and 1970. Its significance largely eclipsed the previous Aswan L ...
upstream.
Background
The earliest recorded attempt to build a dam near Aswan was in the 11th century, when the
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
polymath and engineer
Ibn al-Haytham
Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham, Latinized as Alhazen (; full name ; ), was a medieval mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age from present-day Iraq.For the description of his main fields, see e.g. ("He is one of the pri ...
(known as ''Alhazen'' in the West) was summoned to Egypt by the
Fatimid Caliph
This is a list of an Arab dynasty, the Shi'ite caliphs of the Fatimid dynasty (909–1171). The Shi'ite caliphs were also regarded at the same time as the imams of the Isma'ili branch of Shi'a Islam.
Family tree of Fatimid caliphs
...
,
Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, to regulate the
flooding of the Nile
The flooding of the Nile has been an important natural cycle in Egypt since ancient times. It is celebrated by Egyptians as an annual holiday for two weeks starting August 15, known as ''Wafaa El-Nil''. It is also celebrated in the Coptic Church ...
. After his
field work
Field research, field studies, or fieldwork is the collection of raw data outside a laboratory, library, or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research vary across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct f ...
convinced him of the impracticality of this scheme,
and fearing the Caliph's anger, he
feigned madness
"Feigned madness" is a phrase used in popular culture to describe the assumption of a mental disorder for the purposes of evasion, deceit or the diversion of suspicion. In some cases, feigned madness may be a strategy—in the case of court jester ...
. He was kept under
house arrest from 1011 until al-Hakim's death in 1021, during which time he wrote his influential ''
Book of Optics''.
Construction
Following their 1882 victory of the Anglo-Egyptian War leading to the
occupation of Egypt, the British began construction of the first dam across the Nile in 1898. Construction lasted until 1902, and it was opened on 10 December 1902, by
Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn. The project was designed by Sir
William Willcocks
Sir William Willcocks (27 September 1852 in India – 28 July 1932 in Cairo, Egypt) was a British civil engineer during the high point of the British Empire. He was an irrigation engineer who proposed and built the first Aswan Dam, the scal ...
and involved several eminent engineers of the time, including Sir
Benjamin Baker and Sir
John Aird, whose firm,
John Aird & Co., was the main contractor. Capital and financing were furnished by
Ernest Cassel
Sir Ernest Joseph Cassel, (3 March 1852 – 21 September 1921) was a British merchant banker and capitalist. Born and raised in Prussia, he moved to England at the age of 17.
Life and career
Cassel was born in Cologne, in the Rhine Province ...
.
The Old Aswan Dam was designed as a
gravity
In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...
-
buttress
A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...
dam; the buttress sections accommodate numerous
gates
Gates is the plural of gate, a point of entry to a space which is enclosed by walls. It may also refer to:
People
* Gates (surname), various people with the last name
* Gates Brown (1939-2013), American Major League Baseball player
* Gates McFadde ...
, which were opened yearly to pass the flood and its nutrient-rich sediments, but without retaining any yearly storage. The dam was constructed of rubble
masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units, which are often laid in and bound together by mortar; the term ''masonry'' can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are bricks, building ...
and faced with red
ashlar
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...
granite. When constructed, the Old Aswan Dam was the largest masonry dam in the world.
[V. Novokshshenov, ]
Laboratory studies of the stone masonry in the Old Aswan Dam
'', Materials and Structures 1993, Vol. 26, pp. 103–110 The design also included a
navigation lock
A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a fixed chamber in which the water lev ...
of similar construction on the western bank, which allowed shipping to pass upstream as far as the second cataract, whereas a
portage overland was previously required. At the time of its construction, nothing of such scale had ever been attempted.
Heightening
Initial limitations were imposed on the dam's height, due to concern for the
Philae Temple
The Philae temple complex (; grc-gre, Φιλαί or Φιλή and Πιλάχ, ar, فيلة , Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''p3-jw-rķ' or 'pA-jw-rq''; cop, ⲡⲓⲗⲁⲕ, ⲡⲓⲗⲁⲕϩ, )is an island-based temple complex in the rese ...
. The initial construction was found to be inadequate for development needs, and the height of the dam was raised in two phases, between 1907–1912 and between 1929–1933. Generation of electricity was added. The first phase was supervised by Sir Benjamin Baker, but much of the detailed work was undertaken by
Murdoch MacDonald.
[Grace's Guide (1952]
Murdoch MacDonald obituary
Accessed: 4 January 2014.
With its final raising (designed and supervised by MacDonald's firm,
Sir M MacDonald & Partners),
the dam is in length, with a crest level above the original riverbed;
the dam provides the main route for traffic between the city and the airport. With the construction of the High Dam upstream, the Old Dam's ability to pass the flood's sediments was lost, as was the serviceability provided by the locks. The previous Old Dam reservoir level was also lowered and now provides control of
tailwater
Tailwater refers to waters located immediately downstream from a hydraulic structure, such as a dam, spillway, bridge or culvert. Generally measured and reported as the average water depth downstream of a hydraulic structure, tailwater can vary ba ...
for the High Dam.
Power plants
The Aswan Low Dam supports two
hydroelectric power plants, Aswan I (1960) and Aswan II (1985–1986). Aswan I contains 7 X generators with
Kaplan turbine
The Kaplan turbine is a propeller-type water turbine which has adjustable blades. It was developed in 1913 by Austrian professor Viktor Kaplan, who combined automatically adjusted propeller blades with automatically adjusted wicket gates to ach ...
s for a combined capacity of and is located west of the dam. Aswan II contains 4 x generators for an installed capacity of and is located at the toe of the dam.
See also
*
Energy in Egypt
This article describes the energy and electricity production, consumption and import in Egypt.
Overview
Electrical power
Egypt is classified as having a “high power system size (24,700 MW installed generation capacity in 2010 with more ...
Further reading
Perennial irrigation and flood protection for Egypt Reports of the Technical Commission on Reservoirs with a note by W.E. Garstin, under Secretary of State, Public Works Department. (1894) National Printing Office, Cairo.
*
Sidney Peel
Sir Sidney Cornwallis Peel, 1st Baronet (1870–1938), was a British army officer, barrister and financier. He was also for the coalition government term 1918–1922, a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP). For the 19 years until death he was ...
The Binding of the Nile and the new Soudan Oxford 1904. Discusses 'Assouan' Dam and Nile River development.
The Assuan Dam Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol. 12, No. 46, January, 1913
* Hanbury Brown
Irrigation; its principles and practice as a branch of engineering Third Edition, London. 1920
References
{{authority control
Dams completed in 1902
Energy infrastructure completed in 1933
Energy infrastructure completed in 1960
Energy infrastructure completed in 1980
Energy infrastructure completed in 1985
Aswan
Buildings and structures in Aswan Governorate
Dams on the Nile
Dams in Egypt
Hydroelectric power stations in Egypt
Gravity dams
Masonry dams
1902 establishments in Egypt