January 21st, 2022
The El Chaparral Works in El Salvador enters its final stage
Almost a year ago, Rodio Swissboring won one of the most important contracts of its history by carrying out specialist works to finish the El Chaparral hydro-electric project in north-eastern of El Salvador. Today, the project is coming to an end.
The project included the construction of the grout curtain, drainage system and dam instrumentation will have been carried out in conjunction with Rodio Kronsa with support from Sixense. Also, the project called for the construction of a rockfill dyke and a plastic concrete diaphragm wall on the right abutment of the dam, as well as waterproofing and additional works in the intake of the project, carried out with the support of Carpi.
After several months of working on this project and various proposals for technical variations from the original project design in order to optimise solutions, which were validated by the customer’s international engineering team who sprang into action, the works are almost finished.
What remains to be done?
To date approximately 130,000 m3 of compacted infill material has been removed, to construct the lateral closing dyke of the dam. This dyke is built on a screen of plastic concrete of almost 10,000 m2.
At the same time the civil engineering works at the base of the Load Chamber and the waterproofing of that chamber, work done in JV with Carpi, are also in their final phase, bringing to date a total of 7,500 m2 of membrane put in place with only the geomembranes on the floor still to be installed.
Concerning the waterproofing grouting, drainage and instrumentation in the dam, works being done in JV with Rodio Kronsa, to date a total of approximately 34,000 perforated linear metres have been completed and 265,000 kg of cement injected. This work is also in its final stage, with mainly the instrumentation work now being done, with the support of Sixense.
It is with a certain pride that we are completing this project that has enabled us to face many challenges and work in synergy with various of the Soletanche Freyssinet’s subsidiaries. This is a new and major reference for our Company and for Soletanche bachy in the area of dams and virtuous structure.
