The Shapai Dam is an

arch dam An arch dam is a concrete dam that is curved upstream in plan. The arch dam is designed so that the force of the water against it, known as hydrostatic pressure, presses against the arch, causing the arch to straighten slightly and strengthen ...

on the

Caopo River The Caopo River (Chinese: ) is a tributary of the Min River in Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province, China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a po ...

Wenchuan County Wenchuan County is a county in Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan, People's Republic of China. The county has an area of , and a population of 100,771 as of 2010. Wolong National Nature Reserve is a protected area located in ...

, Ngawa,

Sichuan Province Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. The dam is tall and composed of

roller-compacted concrete Roller-compacted concrete (RCC) or rolled concrete (rollcrete) is a special blend of concrete that has essentially the same ingredients as conventional concrete but in different ratios, and increasingly with partial substitution of fly ash for Po ...

. There are no spillways on the face of the dam but two tunnels are utilized with a discharge capacity of . A single

penstock A penstock is a sluice or gate or intake structure that controls water flow, or an enclosed pipe that delivers water to hydro turbines and sewerage systems. The term is inherited from the earlier technology of mill ponds and watermills. H ...

feeds water to a power station downstream. The power station contains 2 x 18 MW generators with a combined capacity of 36 MW.

References

Hydroelectric power stations in Sichuan Dams in China Arch dams Dams completed in 2002 2002 establishments in China Roller-compacted concrete dams {{PRChina-powerstation-stub

See also

References