SLUICE GATES AT HAWEA

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29749, 16 February 1962, Page 15

SLUICE GATES AT HAWEA

Success May Mean Savings In Costs

New Zealand engineers were startled to read some years ago when the sluice gates for the Lake Hawes control works were being fabricated, that the gates would cut off the flow of the Hawea river “a« efficiently as a kitchen tap with a new washer in it.”

“The story of the kitchen tap seemed, at the time, to be tempting the fates." Mr P C Spearman. e.f the nower design office of the Ministry of Works in Wellington, to'd the annual conference of the New Zealand Institution of En”’neers in C’ ,r 'str’Tirch

“It certainly described one of our most cherished ambitions, but there were plenty of ways in which things could have gone wrong." Mr Spearman was introducing a detailed technical paper on the design and testing of the deep-water radial tyoe of sluice grates, and operating machinery, installed for controlling the outflow of Lake Hawea to the Roxburgh hydro-electric station through four concrete sluice gates each ’Oft wide by lift high Drop-tigM sealing had been achieved with gates designed to work under an 88ft head of water and to sustain a water load of 300 tons, he said Hoey had proved successful so far for continuous part-open operations in deep-water sluices Details of the construction and operating experience had been exchanged with engineers in the United States and Tasmania. The problem was one th't was receiving considerable attention oversea?. Mr Spearman said

The success of the Hawea project could be of considerable economic importance for the development of reliable sluice gates could, in some cases, eliminate the need for conventional spillways, thus achieving substantial savings in costs.