Ennepetalsperre

The Ennepe retaining wall was built in 1904 in accordance with plans by Professors Otto Intze and Raddatz and the Intze principle as a quarry stone wall and in 1912 raised by 10m to now 50m. The retained volume was thus increased from 10.3m m³ to 12.6m m³ of water. In the beginning, the Ennepetalsperre in the main provided process and industrial water for the many hammer works along the Ennepe valley. Meanwhile, providing drinking water is its main job. In 1997, the Ruhrverband assumed responsibility and started a major restoration. The structure, after all, was more than 80 years old. The retaining wall was repaired in 1997. A tunnelling machine tunnelled a control tunnel through the foundations of the retaining wall. The lower half of the cross section is within the bedrock on which the wall rests, the other half is within the wall. This required huge technical expenditure since the control tunnel had to follow both the wall’s swelling and the valley’s profile to be on the joint of wall and the bedrock all times. It is this control tunnel’s job to discharge seepage water having seeped into the wall itself and between the rock and the wall to reduce the bedwater pressure on the retaining wall.

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Author: Route Industriekultur/ editorial baukunst-nrw
Last changed on 26.09.2007

Categories:
Engineering » Water Management