gravity dam
Sign in to savetype of dam that uses mass to counteract water pressure
~5 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Willow Creek Dam in Oregon, a roller-compacted concrete gravity dam
A gravity dam is a dam constructed from concrete or stone masonry and designed to hold back water by using only the weight of the material and its resistance against the foundation. Gravity dams are designed so that each section of the dam is stable and independent of any other dam section. (In contrast, sections of an arch dam are not independently stable, and instead rely on transmitting force through neighboring sections to the abutments, often anchored into canyon walls.)
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “gravity dam” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.