Egypt's Aswan High Dam: Dinner address presented on December 17, 1956

Abstract

The following note is the summary of an address given by the late Dr. Karl Terzaghi at the dinner meeting of the 10th Soil Mechanics Conference in Ottawa on December 17, 1956. The summary originally appeared in Technical Memorandum 46 of the Associate Committee on Geotechnical Research, National Research Council of Canada.The final Aswan dam was quite different from that described here. Reference should be made to the paper by Kinawy et al. which describes the development of the design in some detail and from which Fig. 1 has been prepared. The major modification in the final design related to measures taken to control piping both in the cofferdams and in the completed embankment. An innovative technique was developed of filling voids in rock fill underwater with sluiced sand thus minimizing the need for filters. This is discussed in the papers by Evdokimov et al. and by Abu-Wafa and Hanna Labib. The address by Dr. Terzaghi is a valued record to the profession in that it provides essential background to the evolution of design for this major dam structure. The Canadian Geotechnical Journal would be very pleased to receive discussions from readers familiar with its final design and performance. (R. M. Quigley, editor, and V. Milligan)