Structure on the Portuguese side of the river Duero at the Aldeadavila Dam

by RicardMN Photography

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Structure on the Portuguese side of the river Duero at the Aldeadavila Dam

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RicardMN Photography

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Aldeadávila Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam on the Duero River (also known as the Douro River) in Spain, near the border with Portugal. The nearest town is Aldeadávila de la Ribera in the Province of Salamanca, about 11.3 kilometres (7.0 mi) to the east. The Portuguese side of the river around the dam site lies within the Arribes del Duero Natural Park.

Several scenes in the 1965 David Lean film 'Doctor Zhivago' were filmed at the Aldeadávila Dam. The dam's famous spillways were opened for the filming, and are shown in the motion picture open at full force. Another scene depicts workers walking into one of the dam's enormous tunnels. The final scenes of Antonio Mercero's 1972 film, 'La cabina' (The Telephone Box) were also filmed inside the dam. 'Terminator: Dark Fate' filmed a scene at the dam.

The dam is 140 metres (460 ft) high and its cost was estimated in 1962 at US$60,000,000 (about $443.5 million in 2010 inflated-adjusted dollars). It was one of a series of very high dams built in Europe in the two decades after World War II; these were designed with a downstream face inclined toward the upstream flow. This simplified the dam's design and construction (although it required more concrete to build), and more readily incorporated the spillways into the dam face. The dam's face is nearly vertical. Design work on the dam began in 1956, and construction completed in 1963.

The underground power station and tunnels were excavated using a mining procedure known as large-chamber stoping. The use of this technique for the Aldeadávila Dam is considered a textbook example. The turbine and generator hall, and the transformer hall were both cut from solid granite as well. The turbine and generator room is 140 metres (460 ft) long, 18 metres (59 ft) wide, and 40 metres (130 ft) deep. The total volume of excavated material for all halls, rooms, and abutments was 600,175 cubic metres (785,000 cu yd). (Description from Wikipedia)

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November 26th, 2021

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