Three Gorges Dam HistoryⅢ

Three Gorges Dam History – Introduction of Three Gorges Dam

The complete name of Three Gorges Project is Yangtze River Three Gorges hydro-junction Project. The site of Three Gorges Project is located in Sandouping Town in Yichang County, Hubei Province, which is over 40 kilometers away from the Yichang Municipality.

The whole project includes a concrete gravity style dam, water release gate, a hydropower station, a permanent navigation ship lock and a ship elevator. The buildings in Three Gorges Dam Project consist of dam, hydropower station house and navigation buildings. The Three Gorges dam is 3035 meters long, 185 meters high. The total volume of hydropower station machine groups is 1820 kilowatt-hour, and annual generating capacity is 84,700 millions kilowatt-hours. The navigation buildings are located on the left bank of Three Gorges Dam.

Three Gorges Dam History – Construction Stages

Three Gorges Project can be divided into three stages, and the total duration is 17 years.

The first stage project is five years (1993-1997). Except the preparation works, mainly built the first stage cofferdam, dug the flow division canals and so on.

The second stage lasts six years (1997 – 2003). The main task of the project is to build the second stage cofferdam, to construct the power station on the left bank and set up machinery groups.

The third stage project lasts six years (2003 - 2009). This stage mainly works on right bank dam and power station, and continually to set up the machinery group.

Three Gorges Dam History – Benefits

Three Gorges Project is the largest hydro-junction Project in China, even in the world. It is the key project for administrating and developing Yangtze River. It owns flood prevention, power generation, navigation and other comprehensive benefits.

Three Gorges Dam navigation will obviously improve the Yangtze River waterway from Yichang to Chongqing; ten thousands tons Yangtze River ships can come to Chongqing directly. The pass-through capacity of single side can improve to 50 millions tons from 10 millions tons, and the transportation cost can decrease 35% to 37%.

Three Gorges Dam History – Distribution

Three Gorges Dam junction is consist of dam, power station and navigation buildings. The dam is located on the river center.

This dam is flow interception dam, which is concrete gravity style dam. This dam is 2309.47 meters long and 185 meters high, and with 23 flood discharge deep holes.

The power station of the dam is located on the two sides of the dam, where set up power station inlet. The largest flood discharge capacity of Three Gorges Dam can reach 102500 cubic meters /second.

Three Gorges Dam History – Submerged Areas

When the Three Gorges Dam water storage reached 175 meters, there will form the largest submerged areas before the Three Gorges Dam – Three Gorges Reservoir area.

Three Gorges reservoir will submerge 632 square meters land, 2 cities, 11 counties, 116 towns, which involved Yiling District, Zigui County, Xingshan County, Badong County in Hubei Province and many counties in Chongqing.