Embankment dam in the context of "Aswan Dam"

Tellico Dam is a concrete gravity and earthen embankment dam on the Little Tennessee River that was built by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in Loudon County, Tennessee. Planning for a dam structure on the Little Tennessee was reported as early as 1936 but was deferred for development until 1942. Completed in 1979, the dam created the Tellico Reservoir and is the last dam to be built by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Unlike the agency's previous dams built for hydroelectric power and flood control, the Tellico Dam was primarily constructed as an economic development and tourism initiative through the planned city concept of Timberlake, Tennessee. The development project aimed to support a population of 42,000 in a rural region in poor economic conditions.

Asphalt concrete (commonly called asphalt, blacktop, or pavement in North America, and tarmac, bitmac or bitumen macadam in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland) is a composite material commonly used to surface roads, parking lots, airports, and the core of embankment dams. Asphalt mixtures have been used in pavement construction since the nineteenth century. It consists of mineral aggregate bound together with bitumen (a substance also independently known as asphalt, pitch, or tar), laid in layers, and compacted.

The American English terms asphalt (or asphaltic) concrete, bituminous asphalt concrete, and bituminous mixture are typically used only in engineering and construction documents, which define concrete as any composite material composed of mineral aggregate adhered with a binder. The abbreviation, AC, is sometimes used for asphalt concrete but can also denote asphalt content or asphalt cement, referring to the liquid asphalt portion of the composite material.

The Alpaslan-2 Dam is an embankment dam on the Murat River in Muş Province, Turkey. The dam is located about 32 km (20 mi) north of the provincial capital, Muş. The primary purpose of the dam is hydroelectric power production and irrigation. Its power station has an installed capacity of 280 MW, planning to deliver 850 GWh annually, and the reservoir will help irrigate 78,000 ha (190,000 acres) of land.

The Wadi Lebda Dam is an embankment dam located on Wadi Lebda, 5 km (3 mi) south of Khoms in the Murqub District, Libya. Completed in 1982, the primary purpose of the dam is water supply for irrigation and flood control.

A berm is a level space, shelf, or raised barrier (usually made of compacted soil) separating areas in a vertical way, especially partway up a long slope. It can serve as a terrace road, track, path, a fortification line, a border/separation barrier for navigation, good drainage, industry, or other purposes. For general applications, a berm is a physical, stationary barrier of some kind.

The word is from Middle Dutch and came into usage in English via French. In coastal geography, a berm is a bank of sand or gravel ridge parallel to the shoreline and a few tens of centimetres high, created by wave action throwing material beyond the average level of the sea. Berms are also used as a method of environmental spill containment and liquid spill control.

Soil liquefaction occurs when a cohesionless saturated or partially saturated soil substantially loses strength and stiffness in response to an applied stress such as shaking during an earthquake or other sudden change in stress condition, in which material that is ordinarily a solid behaves like a liquid. In soil mechanics, the term "liquefied" was first used by Allen Hazen in reference to the 1918 failure of the Calaveras Dam in California. He described the mechanism of flow liquefaction of the embankment dam as:

The phenomenon is most often observed in saturated, loose (low density or uncompacted), sandy soils. This is because a loose sand has a tendency to compress when a load is applied. Dense sands, by contrast, tend to expand in volume or 'dilate'. If the soil is saturated by water, a condition that often exists when the soil is below the water table or sea level, then water fills the gaps between soil grains ('pore spaces'). In response to soil compressing, the pore water pressure increases and the water attempts to flow out from the soil to zones of low pressure (usually upward towards the ground surface). However, if the loading is rapidly applied and large enough, or is repeated many times (e.g., earthquake shaking, storm wave loading) such that the water does not flow out before the next cycle of load is applied, the water pressures may build to the extent that it exceeds the force (contact stresses) between the grains of soil that keep them in contact. These contacts between grains are the means by which the weight from buildings and overlying soil layers is transferred from the ground surface to layers of soil or rock at greater depths. This loss of soil structure causes it to lose its strength (the ability to transfer shear stress), and it may be observed to flow like a liquid (hence 'liquefaction').

The Tabqa Dam (Arabic: سَدُّ الطَّبْقَةِ, romanized: Sadd aṭ-Ṭabqah, Kurdish: Bendava Tebqa; Classical Syriac: ܣܟܪܐ ܕܛܒܩܗ, romanized: Sekro d'Tabqa), or al-Thawra Dam as it is also named (Arabic: سَدُّ الثَّوْرَةِ, romanized: Sadd aṯ-Ṯawrah, Kurdish: Bendava Tewra; Classical Syriac: ܣܟܪܐ ܕܬܘܪܗ, romanized: Sekro d'Ṯawra, literally "Revolution Dam"), most commonly known as Euphrates Dam (Arabic: سَدُّ الْفُرَاتِ, romanized: Sadd al-Furāt; Kurdish: Bendava Firatê; Classical Syriac: ܣܟܪܐ ܕܦܪܬ, romanized: Sekro d'Frot), is an earthen dam on the Euphrates, located 40 kilometres (25 mi) upstream from the city of Raqqa in Raqqa Governorate, Syria. The city of Al-Thawrah is located immediately south of the dam. The dam is 60 metres (200 ft) high and 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi) long and is the largest dam in Syria. Its construction led to the creation of Lake Assad, Syria's largest water reservoir. The dam was constructed between 1968 and 1973 with help from the Soviet Union. At the same time, an international effort was made to excavate and document as many archaeological remains as possible in the area of the future lake before they would be flooded by the rising water. When the flow of the Euphrates was reduced in 1974 to fill the lake behind the dam, a dispute broke out between Syria and Iraq (which is downstream) that was settled by intervention from Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union. The dam was originally built to generate hydroelectric power, as well as irrigate lands on both sides of the Euphrates. The dam has not reached its full potential in either of these objectives.

The Bakun Dam (Malay: Empangan Bakun) is an embankment dam located in Belaga District, Kapit Division, Sarawak, Malaysia, on the Balui River, a tributary or source of the Rajang River and some sixty kilometres east of Belaga. As part of the project, the second-tallest concrete-faced rockfill dam in the world would be built. It would generate 2,400 megawatts (MW) of electricity once completed.

The purpose for the dam was to meet growing demand for electricity. However, most of this demand is said to lie in Peninsular Malaysia and not East Malaysia, where the dam is located. Even in Peninsular Malaysia, however, there is an oversupply of electricity, with Tenaga Nasional Berhad being locked into unfavourable purchasing agreements with Independent Power Producers. The original idea was to have 30% of the generated capacity consumed in East Malaysia and the rest transmitted to Peninsular Malaysia. This plan envisioned 730 km of overhead HVDC transmission lines in East Malaysia, 670 km of undersea HVDC cable and 300 km of HVDC transmission line in Peninsular Malaysia.

This is a list of the tallest dams in the world above 150 m (492 ft) in height. The tallest man-made dam in the world is the Jinping-I dam, an arch dam in China at 305 m (1,001 ft). The tallest embankment dam and the second tallest man-made dam in the world is the 300 m (984 ft) Nurek Dam in Tajikistan, built by the USSR. The tallest gravity dam is the 285-metre-high (935 ft) Grande Dixence Dam in Switzerland. The tallest natural dam, the 567 m (1,860 ft) Usoi Dam in Tajikistan, is 262 m (860 ft) higher than the tallest existing man-made dam.