Arizona Water Intake Towers

 intake tower / outlet tower / water intake  Add category

he Nevada and Arizona towers are four reinforced-concrete structures located above the dam, two on each side of the canyon. The diameter of these towers is 82 feet at the base, 63 feet 3 inches at the top, and 29 feet 8 inches inside. Each tower is 395 feet high and each controls one-fourth the supply of water for the powerplant turbines. The four towers contain 93,674 cubic yards of concrete and 15,299,604 pounds of steel.

30-foot-diameter penstocks (steel pipes) installed in 37- and 50-foot diameter concrete-lined inclined tunnels connect the intake towers to the power generation plant.

Water flow into the intake towers is controlled via two cylindrical gates per tower - each 32 feet in diameter and 11 feet high. One gate is near the bottom and the other near the middle of each tower. The gates are protected by steel grid trash racks. The total weight of the gates is 5,892,000 pounds and the trash racks weigh 7,024,000 pounds.