REHABILITATION OF BAI THUONG WEIR IN NORTH VIETNAM USING ROLLER

COMPACTED CONCRETE

by Charles C. Hutton, ECI, 5660 Greenwood Plaza Blvd, Suite 500, Englewood, Colorado 80111
Tel: (303) 773-3788, Fax: (303) 740-8671, e-mail: chutton@frharris.com

The Bai Thuong weir is located on the Song Chu River near the town of Thanh Hao, south of
Hanoi. The weir serves as the diversion for a 50,000 hectare irrigation system. The diversion
structures include the 19-meter-high, 300-meter-long masonry concrete weir, sluice, retaining wall
and canal intake structure. The diversion structures were initially designed before the turn of the
century and constructed in about 1916. The weir extends entirely across the river with a small
spillway excavated in the rock on the left abutment. The original design of the weir was an ogee
shape with no stilling basin or protection on the bottom of the river downstream of the structure.
Energy dissipation was accomplished by the hydraulic jump at the toe of the weir. The weir is
overtopped by up to 7 meters during the wet season which typically last for 3 to 4 months.
During the first few years of operation, extensive scour of the rock occurred at the toe of the
structure. Huge amounts of rock and riprap were placed in the scour holes to stabilize the river
bed and protect the stability of the structure. About 6 years after initial construction, the shape of
the weir was modified by adding small flip buckets just below the crest on the downstream face.
Slots were cut in the weir between the flip buckets to alter the flow patterns. The idea was to add
some energy dissipation to the structure, but the flip buckets were located too high to be very
effective. In addition, during high levels of overtopping, the flip buckets become totally
submerged and completely ineffective. Erosion of the river bed continued following installation of
the flip buckets. Another problem that developed was extensive seepage through the concrete in
the weir body. After over 80 years of seepage, most of the lime in the concrete has been removed
from the cement leaving a poorly cemented weir body.

Previous feasibility studies by others proposed grouting and anchoring as the selected repair
methods to stop the seepage and improve the stability. Additional, more extensive, core drilling
and laboratory testing, including petrographic analysis, by ECI showed that the previously
proposed methods would not be recommended due to the poor condition of the concrete and the
difficulty in trying to grout the weir body with any type of chemical or micro-fine cement grout.
The strength of the intact concrete in the weir body was found to average about 2,500 psi.
Several of the core holes showed zones of poorly or uncemented concrete which would be unable
to resist the additional compressive forces from post-tension anchors.

The paper will discuss the development of a unique rehabilitation approach combining a
reinforced concrete diaphragm cut-off wall with and a roller compacted concrete (RCC) buttress
on the downstream face. Sediments against the upstream face of the weir within one meter of the
crest were utilized to construct a slurry trench and reinforced concrete diaphragm wall to cutoff
seepage through the weir. Precast concrete steps were used in the RCC buttress construction to
control lift height and provide erosion resistance from overtopping flows. A hydraulic model
study was completed to evaluate the energy dissipation capability of the one meter high steps for
lower flows and the modified Type III stilling basin for high flows. The model study also assited
in design of the geometry of the steps at the crest. This project is the first use of RCC for
construction or rehabilitation of a dam in Vietnam.