ABSTRACT
The Olivenhain dam will be a new roller-compacted concrete (RCC) gravity dam located near San Diego, California. The dam will be the largest RCC dam constructed in the United States.
The dam is a part of San Diego County Water Authority Emergency Storage Project (ESP) in anticipation of a big earthquake in Southern California. Thus, the most critical parameter of the dam is the tensile strength. A RCC mix with a high workability and cohesiveness was selected in order to eliminate the use of bedding mix between layers.
After the RCC placement was completed, a coring program was implemented at the main body of the dam to verify the performance of the joints. Almost all of the target joints were recovered. Direct tensile test results suggested that the performance of the joints was above the expectation. Therefore, when constructed properly, the dam would behave as a monolith as designed.
