Khouzestan

In the name of God

Water Engineering Department

Khouzestan Multi-Purposes Excursion

November 07 to 11, 2011

Excursion

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Introduction

Water Engineering Department (WED) of Imam Khomeini International University arranges multi-purposes excursion for its senior students. This year as other years, an excursion was programmed to visit some of the important and well-known water projects and structures of Khouzestan Province as well as some cultural attractions.

Khouzestan as one of the historical places of Iran is the origin of ancient water management structures. History of Khouzestan is full of fine waterworks such as Band-e-Mizan, a division structure; Asiab Shoushtar, a water mill and some other dams, bridges and water courses. Khouzestan is also known as one of civilization growth location in Iran. In this respect, Choghazanbil, a zigirat, Shusha City and many other ancient structures with fine architecture can be introduced. Khouzestan has also too many religious attractions especially Prophet Daniel Shrine in Shusha. Therefore, WED found Khouzestan as a nice and ideal place whether technical or cultural location. Since, Iraq attack to Iran, Khouzestan has been become the symbol of merci, magnificence and martyrdom, too.

During the last 60 years, many modern hydro-structures have been made in this region. The first modern drainage system was constructed in Khouzestan more than 40 years ago and the first double arc concrete dam was constructed there more than 50 ars ago. Now, Khouzestan is shining as a diamond on the water and electrical energy industry of Iran. So, Khouzestan is a collection of ancient to modern water and irrigation structures, simultaneously.

Excursion Program

- Technical tours including visit from dam and hydro-power plants, irrigation and drainage systems, agro-industrial companies, irrigation infra-structure manufacturing companies, water courses and pumping stations.

- Cultural tours including visit from military operating area of Val-Fajr (Faw Operations) in Abadan Island, Ahwaz down town and Prophet Daniel Shrine in Shusha.

Day 1, Nov. 07, 2011

A team of 15 undergraduate students and two graduate students in companion with Dr. Sotoodehnia as the head of team, Dr. Arasteh, Eng. Saeedi and Mr. Lotfi as companions was moved to visit Khozestan on Monday, November 7, 2011. The excursion was begun at 6 pm when the train departed from Tehran. The head of team explained the plan of the excursion for the team members and they rested over the night. The team members were:

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No Full Name Picture No Full Name Picture No Full Name Picture

1 Dr. Abbas Sotoodehnia

2 Dr. Peyman Daneshkar Arasteh

3 Eng. Reza Saeedi

4 Ali Lotfifard 5 Farzad Afrouz

6 Zahra Pourazim

7 Rana Javaheri 8 Arezoo Hassan-Nayebi

9 Somayeh Khanmohammadi

10 Ahmad Doosti 11 Maryam Zendeh Del

12 Elham Shahbazkhania

13 Farzad Alimohammadi

14 Zohreh Faraji

15 Alireza Farrokhnia

16 Ehsan Ghasemi 17 Samaneh Mohammadi

18 Seyedeh Sima Mortezaee

19 Hassan Mortezavi 20 Maryam Masoudi

21 Rihana Yousefpour

Day 2, Nov. 08, 2011

The train arrived to Ahwaz on Tuesday, November 08, 2011 at 10 am. The first field trip was begun immediately. The first program was to visit Jihad Zamzam irrigation pipe and sewer high-pressure pipe manufacturing factory. The students visited the factory for almost 1.5 hr. They visited high-pressure sewer pipe production line and quality control lab. The pipes were made of polyethylene.

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Pipes have two-layer and a spiral two-layer corrugation part to increase strength of the pipe for external loads and internal pressures. Figures 1 to 3 show the production line.

Figure 1. Corrugated high-pressure sewer pipe machine.

Figure 2. Inside corrugated layer to increase the strength of pipe over loads.

Figure 3. Final 6 m high-pressure sewer pipe.

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A heating element is added to the one of the end of the pipe for welding two pipes and making a longer one. Figures 4 to 6 show this heating element part. By exerting a proper voltage different diameter size pipes will be welded to each other.

Figure 4. Installing the heating element to joints.

Figure 5. Two-outside electrodes for welding procedure.

Figure 6. A welded joint.

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Irrigation pipes were made of PE using a tension procedure using a serial tension machines. Figure 7 shows these machines. Irrigation pipes of Jihad-Zamzam factory are useful for low-pressure irrigation system of less than 3.5 atm. In most of pressurized irrigation system of Khouzestan a 4.5 atm pressure is required at nozzle. So, there is a need to about 8-8.5 atm pressure in pumping plant which is not supported by the above mentioned low-pressure pipes.

Figure 7. Serial tension machine.

Quality control lab (QC lab) was the other part of the factory that the team visited. In the QC lab, several tests were explained by the lab operator. Raw materials and produced pipes are tested in the QC lab to check the quality of the production among the Iran Standards. Those tests that introduced to the students were density test, melted material flow test, fracture development test, smog test, Oxidation test, heated strain test, tension test (Figure 8), ring stiffness test and flexibility test (Figure 9).

Figure 8. Tension test device.

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Figure 9. Ring stiffness and flexibility tests device.

After visiting the Jihad-Zamzam factory, the team moved to Salman Farsi Agro-Industry Company to visit pump stations of Salam Farsi and Faraby projects. Salman Farsi project has an area of 144 km2 with about 12,000 ha of sugar cane. The Salman Farsi pumping station pumps 36 m3/s water from Karun River by 16 submerged pumps with nominal capacity of 2250 lit/s with a 25 kW electrical rotor. As it is expected, the actual capacity of each pump is a function of the upstream head of water over its suction pipe. The head of water was 2.05 m on the day of visit so the discharge of each pump was 1850 lit/s.

There are three pump stations on Karun dawn stream of Ahwaz City, Debel Khazaee, Faraby and Salman Farsi, respectively. Faraby pumping Station is adjacent to the Salman Farsi Station on the up riverbank. Figure 10 to 13 show these stations.

Figure 10. Down stream side of the Salman Farsi Pumping Station.

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Figure 11. Up stream face of the Salman Farsi Pumping Station.

Figure 12. Down stream side of the Faraby Pumping Station.

Figure 13. Up stream face of the Salman Farsi Pumping Station.

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There were two main problems with the pumping stations one of them was the sedimentation on the upstream inlet of the Salman Farsi Station and the other was the continual beak down of the pumps. With a look on the upstream face of the Slaman Farsi intake it seems that the material depot on the left bank, between Salam Farsi an Faraby Stations causes a change in the flow regime and the depot acts as an groin and changes the direction of the flow lines and velocity vector consequently and reduces the flow velocity. Reduction in the flow velocity causes the sedimentation in upstream and reduces the flow toward the pumps and consequently, reduces the capacity of the station. It seem that the depot was make manually to increase the capacity of Faraby Station. Figure 14 shows the bed material depot upstream of the Salman Farsi Pump Station.

Figure 14. Bed material depot on the left bank of the Salman Farsi intake (Left) and from the opposite view (Right).

Sedimentation in pump hole was the other problem that causes pump beak down. There too many pumps on the pumping plant that show how large the problem is. Figure 15 shows some of these pumps (Axial pumps). As it is seen in the Figure 15, there were some other types of pumps (centrifugal pumps) the figure shows there is a same problem in drainage channels.

Figure 15. Broken down pumps.

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As well as every pumping station, there were some other sections in the pumping plant such as switch and control room, transformer room and high voltage room. There also was a warehouse. Another problem observed was a canal lining beak down in the right bank of the delivery channel of Salman Farsi main canal (Figure 16). As it is seen in the figure, the hole is expanding and some longitudinal cracks in the down adjacent concrete slab is observable.

Figure 16. A break down in the right bank of Salman Farsi main canal (Left), extending the cracks to the adjacent slab (Right)

After finishing the visit, the pump station we moved to visit Zone 4 drainage project. In Salman Farsi project, the delivery channels are concrete but third degree delivery conduit is pressurized pipe that delivers water to farms hydro-flumes except for the Zone 4, which the third degree conduit is, also concrete canal. So, there are several small pumping stations on the main and sub-main delivery channels. Each farm pump station has three pumps with a surge tank to reduce water hammer (Figure 17). In Salman Farsi project main drains are earthen channels and they are parallel to delivery channels. Against each farm pump station, there is a sump-pump system with three pumps which drains drained water from the sump to the main drain (Figure 18). One of the environmental effects of Slaman Farsi project was the high salinity of rained water. Measurements of irrigation and drain water EC show 1.4 and 7.4 dS/m, respectively. It means that salts are being leached from much deeper layers from the required depth of water table control surface for sugar cane. The other problem is accidental seepage or discharge of sugar factory wastes to the main drains that affects the environment as Figure 19 shows.

Figure 17. Farm pumping station.

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Figure 18. Sump-pump system.

Figure 19. Discharge of sugar factory wastes to the main drain.

The required head for farm intakes and pumps is determined by a dock bill weir immediately down stream of each intake (Figure 20). The dock bill weirs operate as a check dam and a weir, simultaneously. The capacity of the weir as well as its sensitivity to change in head is related to its crest length.

Figure 20. An operating dock bill weir in delivery channel (Left), an under construction dock bill weir (Right).

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There are many other structures in the path to the farms such as drops to control the longitudinal canal slope, inverted siphons transfer water from the beneath of roads, double hole intakes to deliver a uniform flow rate to the fields, transitions to change the cross section and side spillways to control the head and discharge in the down stream of other structures such as inverted siphones and punp stations.

Due to the fine texture of the soil and high salinity about 35 dS/m for soil extract, pre-washing of soil and continuously leaching are required. Because of very low hydraulic conductivity, artificial drainage is required, too. In Salman Farsi the previous plan was constructing the lateral with 1.8 to 2.2 m deep with 70 to 100 m apart with mineral filter materials. The drainpipe diameter was more than 125 mm and collectors were concrete pipes. But, with the new design criteria to reduce drain module an installation depth of 0.8 to 1.2 with 40 m lateral distance and synthetic coverage of PE punched pipes with diameter of 125 mm has been selected. The other difference with the old system is open surface collectors. Reason of changing the type of the collectors is the ease of dredging in open surface drains. Figure 21 to 23 show how trencher works, roles of synthetic covered punched drain pipes and the open surface collectors.

Figure 21. The trencher (Left), manual pipe feeding (Middle) and lateral installation (Right).

Figure 22. Synthetic Covered punched drain pipe.

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Figure 23. Open surface collectors.

After finishing the visit of Salman Farsi project the team returned to Ahwaz and the final plan of the day was looking around the Karun riverside and the famous Karun Bridge (Figure 24).

Figure 24. Karun riverside hang out.

Day 3, Nov. 09, 2011

The third day of the field trip was begun at 7 am by moving toward the Supportive Factory Complex of Agro-Industrial Co. (SFC) in Ahwaz-Abadan Road. The team was entered to the complex at 7:30 and a meeting was taken placed in the complex meeting hall to show the potentials the factory complex and their products (Figure 25). The executive manager explained some of specifications of Agro-Industrial Co. as follows:

- Drain installation depth of 2 m - Drain spacing of 40 m in 41%, 50 m in 47% and 60 m in 12% of the area of Debel-Khazaee,

Faraby and Salman Farsi projects. - Water table control depth of 100 cm

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SFC was developed to supply required hydraulic conduit and structures of those projects such as pressurized irrigation pipes, high-pressure water and wastewater transport pipe, drainage lateral, collector pipe, hydro-flume, manhole, level switch, sump tank, storage tank.

Figure 25. Meeting in SFC to introduce the potentials and products of the complex.

SFC produce corrugated PVC pipe for lateral and field drain in three diameter of 100, 125 and 160 mm with the capacity of 1000 km/year. Drain pipe is produced with hole or without hole. If the lateral is produced with hole, the holes dimensions are 1 to 1.2 mm width and up to 40 mm length with minimum hole area of 8 cm2/m according to DIN standards. But, the hole area can increase to 20-28 cm2/m conditionally, according to the ring stiffness tests. There two strength standards of 4 and 5 with 28 and 33 kN/m2 resistance to pressure strain. The laterals have only 0.5 mm thickness but the corrugated form of it supplies the required strength (Figure 26).

Figure 26. Drainage lateral PVC pipe.

SFC also produces synthetic fiber covered lateral for drainage projects in soils with PI index of more than 13 which means that the soil is not erodible and there is no need to use mineral filter around the drain pipe within the trench. According to the cost of about 40,000 Rials/m of mineral filter against the

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12,000 Rials/m cost of synthetic fiber covered drain pipe, application of the later is more beneficial. Therefore, there is a tendency to replace this type of drain with the older method. Four types of this pipe are produced in SFC, PP 450, PP 700, PP 900 and PP 1000.

Figure 27. Synthetic fiber covered drain pipe.

To make lateral pipe an injection machine forms melted PE materials and punches the holes along the pipe perimeter. In the first stages to find a suitable mixture of materials different doze of stabilizer exerted to the mixture on the experiences of the workers (Figure 28).

Figure 28. First stage of producing laterals causes many waste materials.

The other products of SFC are one-layered pipe with diameter up to 1000 mm with thickness of 3.5 to 4 mm, two-layered spiral pipe with diameter of 300 to 1200 mm, two-layered ring pipe up to 1200 mm diameter, hydro-flume with 10 to 18 inches diameter, couple intake, man-hole and fittings. SFC can produce concrete and reinforced concrete intakes, man-holes, storage tanks, pipe up to 600 mm diameters and fittings instead of polyethylene type ones.

The specific product of SFC is two-layered high-pressure corrugated ring pipe. The machine that inject PE to make this type of pipe uses a double injection dye head with low pressure vacuum section of about 100 to 120 mbar. Figure 29 shows the machine. There were three dye heads in the complex, each for three diameters. The first dye head for 900, 1000 and 1200 mm diameters, the second for 600, 700 and 800 mm diameters and the third for 300, 400 and 500 mm diameters.

The two layers are injected simultaneously to make a uniform corrugation (Figure 30). To produce a uniform non-fractured pipes with arbitrary length each 6 m length pipe must be welded to the other one. There are three methods of welding, BOT, Extroder and Electro Diffusion. Figure 31 shows the joints of the later welding method.

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Figure 29. Dye heads and rings of the high-pressure ring corrugated pipe injection machine.

As explain in the section of Jihad-Zamzam Co., spiral corrugated pipe is also a daily used type of conduits especially in sewer systems. In the spiral production line, a polypropylene pipe is used to increase the strength of the corrugate part of the pipe (Figure 32). In addition to the form of corrugation in spiral pipes type of making the pipes is quite different from ring-corrugated pipes.

Figure 30. Cross section of a high-pressure corrugated pipe.

Figure 31. Electro diffusion welding method for high-pressure corrugated pipes.

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Hydro-flumes are an innovation in irrigation facilities. With hydro-flumes, irrigation efficiency will be increase up to 40 percent by reducing the conveyance loss. Ease of use of hydro-flume made it a common method of irrigation delivery to fields for most of crops especially in row crops. Ease of spreading and packing the hydro-flume as well as gate installation and regulation to manage applicable water caused a high flexibility for it. Figure 33 shows the steps of hydro-flume injection. SFC also produces the fittings for hydro-flumes (Figure 34).

We left SFC to attend the Shadegan drainage project. In our way to Shadegan we passed a bridge called 54 section bridge which has been constructed to pass the road over the main drain channel of three agro-industrial plants of Debel-Khazaee, Faraby and Salman Farsi.

The main drain channel passes through the Ahwaz-Abadan main road and parallel to Shadegan Road and discharges to Shadegan Wetland one of international wetlands of Iran listed in Ramsar Convention of Wetlands (Figure 35). Measurement of EC of the drained water to the Shadegan Wetland showed that it has and EC of 7.8 dS/m on Wednesday November 9, 2011.

Figure 32. Polypropylene pipes (White pipes) as the core of the corrugation in spiral pipes.

Figure 33. Hydro-flume injection machine.

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Figure 34. Fittings for hydro-flumes.

Figure 35. Discharge of agro-industrial projects to Shadegan Wetland (Left) and the Shadegan Wetland (Right)

Shadegan drainage project is being constructed by the goal of reclaiming of 10,000 ha of saline lands in three phases for irrigation of palm with bubbler system from the water delivered from Jarahi River with an irrigation module of 1 lit/s-ha (Figure 36). Furrow length is 250 m and depth of applicable water for pre-washing is 0.5 m. The 3,000 ha phase 2 was visited by the team. According to the plan, a parallel drainage system will be constructed for control water table in 100 cm depth with the spacing of 50 m, PVC lateral diameter of 125 mm and installation depth of 160 cm using a mineral filter with 75% fine sand and 25% coarse sand according to the suggestion of USBR (Figure 37). To install lateral an inter-drain trencher is used with a laser control management (Figure 38).

Depth of groundwater is less than 1.5 m with an EC of about 200 dS/m and Soil salinity of 20 dS/m. Collectors are no-hole 200 to 300 mm pipes. Each 180 laterals drain to a PE collector in a PE manhole 50 m apart from each other (Figure 39). Collector drains to a main ditch (Figure 40) that discharges to sump-pump system with a 5 m difference in level with the Shadegan Wetland.

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Figure 36. Palm irrigation in Shadegan.

Figure 37. Filter materials.

Figure 38. The trencher (Left), laser control system (Middle) and the trench (Right).

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Figure (39). PE manhole (Left) and sedimentation hole in the bottom of the manhole (Right).

Figure 40. Discharge of drained water into the drain channel by collectors.

Measurements show that collector water and drain channel water have EC of 24.6 and 19.1 dS/m. Because of entering the runoff of irrigation water from the end of farms into the drainage channel, the EC of the channel water is less than the collector’s.

Figure 41. Discharge of runoff into the open drain.

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According to the primary plan, there might be constructed a sump-pump system for each collector. But, from the financial view the primary design failed and with deepening the bottom of the main drain channel for 2 m, all collectors drains to the ditch gravitationally. However, a large pump station was constructed to pump the drained water into Shadegan Wetland. The main pump station has 10 submerged pumps.

After visiting the Shadegan drainage project, we went to the location of one of the famous honored persons of Shadegan City, Sheikh Albo-Ghobeish, according to his invitation (Figure 42). The team would like to thank him for his hospitality.

Figure 42. Dinner Ceremony in Albo-Ghobeish Home.

After having lunch and an hour rest, the team moved to visit Abadan Island and the monument of Anonymous Martyrs of Val-Fajr Military Operation during the war of Iraq against Iran. The team had a very nice and mystique time there and it was memorizing times for every one especially when the team was introduced to Mr. Mahmoodi one of the warriors of Val-Fajr Operation during the holy defense period (Figure 43 to 46).

Figure 43. Mr. Mahmoodi one of the warriors of holy defense.

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Figure 44. Monument of Anonymous Martyrs.

Figure 45. Symbol of resistance of Iranian against the enemies.

Figure 46. Group photo on the harbor Arvand River against Faw peninsula.

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Day 4, Nov. 10, 2011

The team left Ahwaz at 7.00 am to Shusha to visit Prophet Daniel Holy Shrine and spent some hours in the Shrine for praying. The group also spent a moment in the historical area of Shusha Castel-Museum (Figure 47 and 50).

Figure 47. Leaving Ahwaz to the departure of Shusha.

Figure 48. Prophet Daniel Shrine in Shusha.

Figure 49. Precise history of Shusha region (Left) and Shusha Castel-Museum (Right).

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Figure 50. Shusha Castel-Museum (Left) and one of the column base (Right).

After finishing the visit of Shusha, the team moved to visit Dez Dam the state of the art in dam construction in the region. The dam is a multi-purposes dam and was designed to control flood, supply irrigation water for 125,000 ha of irrigated lands and energy generation. Dez Dam is double arc concrete dam (Figure 51). Height of concrete wall from bottom of the river is 203 m, Length of crest is 212 m, and depth of grouting is 70 m with a life time of 100 years. Dez Dam was begun to study in early 50s by Harza Co. The coffer dam and diversion tunnels were constructed in 1957. The construction started in 1959, and the wall was finished in 1961. Dez Dam and hydro-power plant were finished and started to operate in 1962. Dam site was selected in most narrow valley in a Bakhtyari conglomerate formation. Flood is controlled via two side spillways with 12 and 14 m crest length, respectively (Figure 52). Spilling capacity is 6,000 m3. There is an armored wall at the end of each spilling tunnel (Figure 53). Hydro-power plant has two side intake with sluicing gates on the right bank (Figure 53).

Figure 51. Dam wall with double arc.

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Figure 52. Two adjacent side spillway on the left bank.

Figure 53. Armored walls (Left) and spilling tunnel (Right).

Figure 54. Hydro-power plant intake with sluicing gates.

Each intake discharges to a tunnel and each tunnel delivers water to four pentwo four-turbine-generator units. Turbines are submerged axial Francis type and generators are froSiemens with the capacity of 65 MW eachhydro-power plant is 520 MW (Figure network and has 5 different power linesKhorram-Abad path.

Figure 55. Hydro

Figure 56. Generators room and dispatch room of the hydro

The reservoir has a capacity of and sedimentation discharge with piston control facilitiescontrol the right side wall an armored wall has been constructed with 59). A part of the batching plant can be seen in the right part of Figure

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Each intake discharges to a tunnel and each tunnel delivers water to four pengenerator units. Turbines are submerged axial Francis type and generators are fro

MW each and 13.8 kV, 50 Hz and 3,000 AFigure 55). Dez Dam supplies required surplus electricity of the national

different power lines, three lines for Khouzestan and the others for Tehran from

Hydro-power plant at the bottom of down face of Dez Dam.

Generators room and dispatch room of the hydro-power plant.

The reservoir has a capacity of 3.3 Bm3 (Figure 57). There are three bottom outlets of irrigation and sedimentation discharge with piston control facilities. The diffusers are seen in the Figure control the right side wall an armored wall has been constructed with 500 pluck

A part of the batching plant can be seen in the right part of Figure 59.

Each intake discharges to a tunnel and each tunnel delivers water to four pen-stack. So, there are generator units. Turbines are submerged axial Francis type and generators are from

A. So, the capacity of the Dez Dam supplies required surplus electricity of the national

for Khouzestan and the others for Tehran from

power plant at the bottom of down face of Dez Dam.

power plant.

There are three bottom outlets of irrigation The diffusers are seen in the Figure 58. To

plucks of 20 m length (Figure

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Figure 57. Reservoir of the Dez Dam with the capacity of 3.3 Bm3.

Figure 58. Bottom outlets of irrigation and sediment discharge (Left) and diffuser (Right).

Figure 59. Armored wall to control right side wall.

There are many control devices including piezometers and stress-strain gauges inside the dam wall, its foundation and on the rock side walls (Figures 60 and 61). Forty one people have been died during the construction, 28 Iranian and 13 foreigner and a sign for their honor was installed in the site.

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Figure 60. Control piezometers in rocks.

Figure 61. Control galleries in dam wall.

The team took some group photo with this fame structure (Figures 62).

Figure 62. Group photo in Dez Dam site.

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The excursion was finished on Thursday November 10, 2011 at 2:00 pm and the tean returned to home by train. Figure 63 shows the end of excursion moments.

Figure 63. Group photo in Tehran train station at the end of excursion.

Report By: Dr. Peyman Daneshkar Arasteh

Certified By: Dr. Abbas Sotoodehnia

Date: Nov. 11, 2011, Friday