Alternative Title

Paper No. 2.20

Location

St. Louis, Missouri

Date

10 Mar 1998, 2:30 pm - 5:30 pm

Abstract

The upper reservoir of the Turlough Hill pumped storage station was commissioned by the Irish Electricity Supply Board in 1974. This upper reservoir comprises a rockfill embankment within which there is a useful capacity of 2.3 million cubic metres. It was constructed in difficult conditions on a very isolated and exposed site at the top of a mountain, using rockfill derived from the local granitic bedrock. The reservoir is lined with asphaltic concrete.

The paper describes briefly the design and construction of the embankment. It then summarises the results of monitoring and inspecting, with particular emphasis on movement, seepage and on the performance of the asphaltic concrete lining.

The reservoir has performed very well in its 23 years of service to date. Some early seepage problems were found to be due to an isolated defect in the lining. In recent times a slight increase in the quantity of measured seepage has been noted. The amount of seepage is small and is most likely due to the natural aging of the bitumen in the lining system on exposure to sunlight. The paper illustrates how most of the problems are located on the sides of the reservoir, which are exposed to the evening sun.

The paper will conclude with a summary of the measures being adopted to ensure the continued good performance of the reservoir into the next century.

Department(s)

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering

Meeting Name

4th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering

Publisher

University of Missouri--Rolla

Document Version

Final Version

Rights

© 1998 University of Missouri--Rolla, All rights reserved.

Creative Commons Licensing

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Document Type

Article - Conference proceedings

File Type

text

Language

English

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Mar 8th, 12:00 AM Mar 15th, 12:00 AM

The Performance of Turlough Hill Upper Reservoir

St. Louis, Missouri

The upper reservoir of the Turlough Hill pumped storage station was commissioned by the Irish Electricity Supply Board in 1974. This upper reservoir comprises a rockfill embankment within which there is a useful capacity of 2.3 million cubic metres. It was constructed in difficult conditions on a very isolated and exposed site at the top of a mountain, using rockfill derived from the local granitic bedrock. The reservoir is lined with asphaltic concrete.

The paper describes briefly the design and construction of the embankment. It then summarises the results of monitoring and inspecting, with particular emphasis on movement, seepage and on the performance of the asphaltic concrete lining.

The reservoir has performed very well in its 23 years of service to date. Some early seepage problems were found to be due to an isolated defect in the lining. In recent times a slight increase in the quantity of measured seepage has been noted. The amount of seepage is small and is most likely due to the natural aging of the bitumen in the lining system on exposure to sunlight. The paper illustrates how most of the problems are located on the sides of the reservoir, which are exposed to the evening sun.

The paper will conclude with a summary of the measures being adopted to ensure the continued good performance of the reservoir into the next century.