Just read that the Hoover Dam used enough concrete to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York

I was flipping through an old engineering magazine at the dentist's office yesterday. The article said they used about 3.25 million cubic yards of concrete for the whole dam. It kind of blew my mind to picture that much material. Has anyone here ever worked on a pour that even came close to making you think about that scale?

3 comments

3 Comments

tara1518d ago

That "two-lane highway" fact always gets me. I can't even picture the mixer for that job, let alone the coffee needed for the crew. Makes my biggest DIY project look like a sandcastle.

henry_grant8d ago

Yeah but tara15, I actually love trying to picture it. The scale is the cool part, not the scary part. What's the biggest pour you've ever seen in person?

skyler_white9518d ago

Forget the mixer, what about the water? I mean, where do you even get that much water on site? Do they have a whole temporary pipeline running to it or something? And then you have to keep it all wet while it sets, right? The whole thing just breaks my brain trying to imagine the scale.