Technical and economic indices of reinforced-concrete lock structures

Abstract

1. The selection of the lock supply system plays an important role in increasing the rate of concrete placement and shortening construction time. In this respect simple forms of the structure and almost complete absence of thin-walled reinforced-concrete structures, which are used in the case of a head supply system, are preferable to a supply distribution system. However, for heads above 12–13 m the head supply system produces worse conditions for ships during locking and this circumstance limits its use, especially on locks with considerable traffic. 2. The use of heavily reinforced structures did not cause a noticeable complication of the operation when constructing locks, since simultaneously there was a further industrialization and improvement of reinforcement operations, and also of the formwork and concrete placement. 3. In addition to design characteristics, the lock construction time is important for reducing the cost of construction. Long construction periods and violation of the general graphs of operations increase costs and the peaks in the operations that are created in this case lead to poor use of machines, labor, and the material resources of construction. This circumstance must be taken into account when organizing rhythmic and uniform placement of concrete with the necessary machines and labor force.