The Hoover Dam

The first concrete was placed into the dam on June 6, Since no structure of the magnitude of the Hoover Dam had been constructed, many of the procedures used in construction of the dam were untried. Since concrete heats up and contracts as it cures, uneven cooling and contraction of the concrete posed a serious problem. The Bureau of Reclamation engineers calculated that if the dam were built in a single continuous pour, the concrete would have taken 125 years to cool to ambient temperature. The resulting stresses would have caused the dam to crack and crumble.[18] To solve this problem the dam was built in a series of interlocking trapezoidal concrete pours. To further cool the concrete each form contained cooling coils of 1 inch (25 mm) thin-walled steel pipe. River water was circulated through these pipes to help dissipate the heat from the curing concrete. After this, chilled water from a refrigeration plant on the lower cofferdam was circulated through the coils to further cool the concrete. After each layer had sufficiently cooled, the cooling coils were cut off and pressure grouted by pneumatic grout guns. The concrete is still curing and gaining in strength as time goes on.[19] There is enough concrete in the dam to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York.[20]