On听Oct.听22, students from CU Boulder's engineering geology class (CVEN 3698) embarked on听a field trip to explore the Chimney Hollow Dam project, an active construction site located to the west of Berthoud, adjacent to Carter Lake.
Todd Loar, a senior geological engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and an adjunct professor who led the trip, said the site visit and project engineers provided valuable insights to the students.
"There's no classroom substitute for standing within and walking around a large civil construction project, where you can truly grasp its听magnitude, scale and the equipment required to successfully build it," he said.
The Chimney Hollow project encompasses听a 365-foot high, asphalt core rockfill dam, an inlet-outlet tunnel, a valve house and听control structure, a box culvert spillway, an earth fill saddle dam, and construction facilities including a听rockfill quarry, asphalt batch plant and an aggregate processing plant which provides all the project materials.
Since it was a Sunday and no active construction was occuring, the students had the opportunity to freely explore听the project features and observe听the construction and engineering elements close up. They engaged in discussions about听the project with engineers from Stantec, including听topics such as the project's听purpose, geologic and geotechnical site conditions and characterization, technical engineering analysis and design features, construction processes, operational aspects, geological and geotechnical challenges and influence on the project, and听the rationale behind the design features.
"The students gained听a physical sense for the forces and pressures that need to be anticipated听and will be exerted on the dam and its foundation, the supporting elements for a tunnel, and significant earthworks and excavations, in addition to the impact听on construction quality, schedule听and costs," Loar said.