How Welding Provided Strength to the Sardar Sarovar Dam?

Sardar Sarovar Dam is one of the largest infrastructure projects in India. The primary purpose of this dam is to supply water and electricity to four states – Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra. The water from this dam will be used for drinking and irrigation facilities, especially in drought-prone regions. It will also provide peaking power to the western grid which has restricted hydel power production currently. 

A concrete gravity dam built on the Narmada river in Gujarat, it became fully operational in September 2017.  The dam construction in Gujarat supports spillway discharge capacity of 30.7 lakhs cusecs. It is the second-largest concrete dam in the world (6.82 million cu.m) after the Grand Coulee Dam (8 million cu.m) in the US in terms of the volume of concrete used in gravity dams. It is also the third-highest concrete dam (163 meters) in India after the Bharka dam (226 meters) in Himachal Pradesh and the Lakhwar dam (192 meters) in Uttarakhand. 

Given its humungous scale, Sardar Sarovar Project has used more than 85000 tons of steel for strength. The Steel Authority of India (SAIL) has supplied 80% of the steel for this project. D&H Sécheron has provided significant welding support in the construction of this dam through its dealer network of welding electrode manufacturers in Gujarat.

Here are three main welding electrodes that were used in the Sarovar dam in Gujarat:

1. Supratherme 

This E7018 electrode is heavy-coated low hydrogen, iron powder type electrode. With a metal recovery of about 115%, it is commonly used in heavy structures subjected to dynamic loading and impact, highly restrained joints, coaches, wagons, penstocks, boilers, pressure vessels, earthmoving machines, etc.

2. Norma V 

This is an E6013 welding rod used as a general-purpose all-position electrode.  It is suitable for welding low carbon and mild structural steel. It is commonly used in frames, pipes, tanks, bodies, machinery construction, etc.

3. Ultratensal MH

This is an E11018M electrode that has excellent crack resistance. It displays high strength combined with good sub-zero impact strength. Due to these properties, it is considered suitable for welding high-strength Q&T steels like Welten 80, SA517 grades and their equivalents. 

D&H Sècheron has also supplied welding consumables for Bogibeel Bridge and Chenab Bridge. The Bogibeel Bridge is a combined road and rail bridge built over the Brahmaputra River in Assam. It is India’s first bridge with fully welded steel-concrete support beams which can sustain earthquakes of magnitude up to 7 on the Richter scale. The Chenab Bridge is an arch bridge being built on the Chenab River in Jammu and Kashmir. The construction is underway and it is likely to open in December 2022. Once it opens, it will be the world’s highest rail bridge. If you are looking to buy any of these electrodes or want information about other electrodes, you can connect with D&H Sècheron.