Auguste Graeff: Dam Designer and Hydraulic Engineer

Abstract

Dams have been erected from the earliest times in China and the Near East, and later in Spain. Until around 1850, dam heights were extremely limited because no computational models were available for engineering design. Perhaps more important, the population downstream often opposed these structures because it had often experienced dam failures resulting in significant loss of life and property. Embankment dams reached a maximum height of some 20 m, whereas gravity dams had a maximum height of some 30 m Schnitter 1994 . In the 1860s, the design of gravity dams was developed mainly by French engineers, one of which was Auguste Graeff Fig. 1, Fig. 2 . The following traces his career and gives an overview in the advances made in hydraulic engineering during the second half of the 19th century.