What does a sluice look like without water? Water lock
Magdeburg Water Bridge (German: Kanalbrücke Magdeburg, the entire waterway is called Wasserstraßenkreuz Magdeburg) is a water bridge in Germany that connects two important canals: the Elbe-Havel Canal and the Central German Canal, through which communication with the industrial region - the Ruhr Valley
Channel, an artificial channel used as a shipping route or to move water. Among the water canals, a distinction is made between water supply and irrigation canals (which supply water to areas where there is little water); drainage systems (through which water is removed from places where there is too much of it); energy (thanks to which the operation of hydroelectric power stations is ensured). Although this article discusses only shipping canals, it should be noted that some of them also serve to move water masses. Shipping canals are deep-water (through which large sea vessels can pass) and shallow-water (intended for the movement of river and coastal vessels).
The laying of canals is necessary in cases where the river is either too tortuous or does not have enough water to allow the creation of a fairway by dredging or channel straightening methods. With full regulation of the flow, the river turns into a sequence of channels and reservoirs with a given minimum depth, separated by dams with locks through which ships are transferred from one reservoir to another. This is how shipping is organized, for example, on the Moscow River.
Deep water channels
Lockless Corinth Canal in Greece
There are two types of such canals: the first are the shortest route for ships between two oceans or other water basins, the second allow ocean-going ships to approach ports located far from sea coasts. Examples of the second type of canal are the Houston Canal (connects the oil port of Houston in Texas with the Gulf of Mexico), the Manchester Canal (near Manchester, UK) and the North Sea Canal (between the North Sea and Amsterdam, the Netherlands).
The most important deep-water canals include the Panama Canal (between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans), the Suez Canal (between the Mediterranean and Red Seas) and the Kiel Canal (between the Baltic and North Seas). If these canals did not exist, then cargo would have to be transported by a roundabout sea route or with transshipment at ground transport, which requires a lot of time, labor and money.
Some shipping canals were built not only for the purpose of developing trade routes, but also for the rapid transfer of warships from one basin to another, as a result of which these canals acquired strategic importance.
Most deep-sea canals were built in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and only a few of them are capable of passing the largest modern ships. Canal locks are narrow or short for such vessels, or when fully loaded vessels of large displacement, the canals themselves are not deep enough.
The Suez Canal, 161 km long, was opened for navigation in 1869, the Kiel Canal (98.7 km) in 1895, the Panama Canal (81.6 km) in 1914, and the White Sea-Baltic Canal (227 km) in 1933.
Shallow water channels
Most of the world's shipping canals are channels that can only accommodate shallow draft vessels. Shallow canals typically connect rivers and lakes, and their network forms a waterway system within the region. Transportation along these routes is especially important for European countries - Russia, Poland, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium.
Bypass canals and rivers turned into canals
Some canals were laid parallel to rivers and lakes. Channels of this type are called bypass or bypass. For example, in the Netherlands there is the Juliana Canal, laid along the bed of the Maas River between the cities of Maastricht and Maasbracht, in Russia - the Staro- and Novoladoga Canals along the southern shore of Lake Ladoga.
Bypass canals were usually built to bypass non-navigable sections of rivers. However, the capabilities of modern technology make it possible to control the regime of rivers in such a way that they become like canals. Dams with multi-chamber navigation locks are built on rivers, which turns these rivers into shipping canals. In the USA, the Ohio River and the upper reaches of the Mississippi River are transformed in this way; in Russia, the middle and lower reaches of the river are transformed. Moscow, which became part of the waterway to the Oka and Volga.
Gateways
Diagram of a typical multi-stage gateway
Dam and lock
The most interesting hydraulic unit of the shipping canal in terms of operating principles and operational features is gateway- a watertight chamber in which the ship is raised or lowered until the water level in the lock is equal to the level of the section of the canal where the ship is heading. A canal may consist of several sections with different water levels in them, and one or more locks are installed at each drop. Few economically important canals connect rivers or other bodies of water with the same water level, and their terrain is such that the water level is the same along the entire length of these canals, so locks are not needed there. These are the Suez and Kiel canals.
The water level in the lock is changed by pumping it through water supply galleries in the bottom or walls of the lock, or it flows through them by gravity. When a ship moves from upstream to downstream, the water in the lock rises to the level in the upstream so that the ship can enter the lock. At each end of the lock chamber there is a waterproof hydraulic valve, usually a gate of two doors, which, turning, close at an obtuse angle, looking towards the upstream. The upper gate opens, the ship enters the lock, and the gate behind it closes tightly, again forming a watertight seal. The water from the lock is then diverted to the downstream level, after which the downstream gate is opened and the vessel exits the lock. When the ship moves up, everything happens in reverse. Typically, water to increase the level in the lock is supplied through water galleries from the upper pool, and to lower the level in the lock, it is drained through similar galleries into the lower pool.
It is not known exactly when sluices were invented, but it probably happened in the 14th or 15th century. In 1481, two Dominican monks from Viterbo (Italy) proposed a design for a lock chamber with locks, and Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) designed 6 locks, creating the Milan canal system. Before this (and for a long time after that) on many canals the ships were raised or lowered along an inclined plane on ropes; however, only small vessels could be transported in this way. The historical role of locks is due precisely to the fact that with their help it is possible to guide large ships through canals with differences in level
Gateway No. 7 of the Moscow Canal- a single-chamber shipping lock located on the Moscow Canal in the Tushino area, in the north-west of Moscow. Together with, located 1.5 km from it to the southwest, it is part of the Tushino hydroelectric complex, which connects (Moscow Canal) and, allowing overcoming a height difference of 36 meters in a relatively short section (the difference between the level of the Khimki reservoir and the level rivers).
View of the upper chamber of lock No. 7 from the Khimki Reservoir. 2009 Photo: Mikhail Arkhipov
Lock No. 7 is a two-chamber lock: upon entering the first chamber, ships rise or fall, and then move to the second chamber of the lock. The minimum time for a ship to pass through the lock is 1 hour. At the upper head of the chamber of lock No. 7 (from the reservoir side) it is closed with segmental gates, at the middle and lower ones - with double-leaf gates. At the lower chamber of lock No. 7 the channel crosses. At the upper gate of the lock (from the reservoir side) there are located.
Dimensions of the gateway: chamber length - 290 meters, width - 30 meters, depth - 5.50 meters. The lock is on the balance sheet of the Tushino district of hydraulic structures. The passage of ships through the lock begins on April 24 and ends on November 17.
View of the lower chamber of lock No. 7 and the pedestrian bridge from the upper chamber of the lock. 2009 Photo: Mikhail Arkhipov
View of the lower chamber of lock No. 7 from the pedestrian bridge. 2015 Photo: Mikhail Arkhipov
In lock No. 7 it is possible to carry out counter locking, when ships moving in different directions are locked simultaneously, one in the upper chamber and the other in the lower chamber. This happens as follows: one vessel enters the upper chamber, and the other enters the lower one. Water from the top is discharged into the bottom, causing one vessel to rise and the other to sink.
Counter locking at lock No. 7. 2015 Photo: Mikhail Arkhipov
Construction of the lock began in 1933 and was completed in 1937. The first ships passed through the lock on May 1, 1937, and it was officially accepted into operation, along with the Moscow Canal, on July 15, 1937. The architectural design of the Tushino hydroelectric complex was carried out by the architect V.F. Krinsky: twelve towers (on locks No. 7 and No. 8), architecturally designed according to a common classical motif, form an alley decorating the waterway.
View of Gateway No. 7 from Gateway No. 8. 2012 Photo: Mikhail Arkhipov
The upper towers of gateway No. 7 are decorated with high reliefs (a type of sculptural convex relief in which the image protrudes above the background plane by more than half the volume of the depicted parts) depicting Komsomol members of the 1930s. The middle towers have figures of Komsomol members.
The sculpture at the middle gateway tower on the left bank. 2015 Photo: Mikhail Arkhipov
High relief on the tower of gateway No. 7. 2009 Photo: Mikhail Arkhipov
To use the difference when discharging the water flow from the watershed pool of the canal into the Moscow River and, as a result, to return part of the energy expended on pumping water from the Volga, the Skhodnenskaya hydroelectric station was built on the southern slope of the route, located west of lock No. 7 (Skhodnensky dead end, building 3) .
The section of the canal between lock No. 7 and passes through high dams. At the intersection of the canal with the bed of the Khimki River, which passes under the canal, the height of the dams reaches 17 meters, and in front of the upper chamber of lock No. 8, under the bottom of the canal there are
This time there will be no analytics and problematic issues, but there will be time-lapse, animation and a bunch of photos about how the locks on our many reservoirs are structured and how they work.
, I already told you. Now let's take a closer look at how ships overcome the rather large rapids of constructed dams in order to get up or downstream.
Look at the Cheboksary hydroelectric power station and locks:
It is clear why the locks were built at the same time as the dams.
Did you know that today in many places the locks and hydroelectric power stations themselves, along with the dam, belong to different departments?
The hydroelectric power station is owned by RusHydro, and the locks are owned by Rosmorrechflot. This is the irony of privatization.
However, what am I? He promised without retreat!
Then let's watch the video first, and then the details in the photographs.
Before that, I’ll just say that they usually don’t give excursions to the locks, so I had to use the opportunity to the fullest - I placed an old Canon S3 IS over the abyss and started shooting time-lapse:
Well, then I also took my modeling system and made a model of the gateway with animation to show on the model how the gate closes, where the water flows from and all that.
For what is a gateway? This is the same pool from the classical arithmetic problem: it flows into one pipe and pours out into another. Nothing complicated!
Please note that river locks do not require any pumps: water fills the lock chamber or flows out of it itself, as soon as the valves are opened.
But on canals passing through watersheds (like the Moscow Canal), pumps are needed (although not necessarily on the locks themselves).
The mathematical model of this “pool” is a little more complicated than two pipes: in addition to them, you also need to control the boat and the gate. And water to flow in the pipes:
What? Is the language unfamiliar? Well that's normal! ;)
That's it, that's it, I won't fill my head with wisdom anymore. Just watch the video and see for yourself.
True, the photo mounted (for beauty) of the gateway control panel is from the Nizhny Novgorod Hydroelectric Power Station, but I think our people will forgive me for that! :)
Well, now for the photo details.
That the roof of the turbine hall of the Cheboksary hydroelectric power station is also a bridge across the Volga:
Therefore, Cheboksary residents and guests of the capital usually see our hydroelectric power station from a car window, and in the best case (if you stop in front of the bridge) something like this:
To see all the beauty and power of the hydraulic structure, you need to climb the mountain to the grove.
As children, we used to go there on bicycles to look at the great construction site and experience the joy of labor (“this is the feeling that the poet experiences when looking at a dam under construction”).
Well, or climb the Gateway Control Tower - that’s where my camera stood on a tripod:
For those who have forgotten or for the first time, click the mouse to open the photo in a large size!
This was the view from above. And here is the Tower itself, seen from below:
What does this Center look like?
The control panel is simple and not particularly modern (but this is enough here - this is not an airport):
There is another interesting system. They show all the ships going up and down the Volga (all those with GLONASS/GPS and special data transmission means).
The blue track of the next ship is visible on the screen. We wanted to wait for him, but we never did - he was far away and walked slowly:
Actually, speed is the main disadvantage of water transport. You can't carry perishable food on a barge.
But it is very convenient to carry building materials. The fact that today an army of Kamaz trucks carries them along the roads is simply a crime against the environment, and even common sense. And we remain hopeful that water transport will eventually recover and develop.
Look at the title photo or this beautiful barge that enters the locks of the Nizhny Novgorod hydroelectric station - what a carrying capacity! To transport so much cargo by Kamaz trucks from one Volga city to another, it is necessary to burn fuel tanks and destroy hundreds of kilometers of the route...
Stop. Everything is clear with a broken road, but with fuel tanks? However, the efficiency of the entire vessel, according to rough estimates, is only 3%. So, current water transport technologies are significantly inferior to freight transport (total efficiency of about 8%) - and even more so to railway transport. Therefore, for now, forget everything that I said in the paragraph above - this requires a separate topic for analysis and comparison!
In the meantime, the Volga, alas, is quite deserted:
But let's not get distracted and continue to get acquainted with the operation of the gateway.
To complete the picture, here is the view “into the abyss” from the Tower:
The first photo was of a double barge that took up the entire lock.
And here there will be only one small boat:
The lock manager indicates to each ship the place it needs to occupy in the lock - the number of the mooring eye, and the captain of a large ship is helped to monitor the position by the following signs:
The ship is moored to the rims - large floats that run on rails in the niches of the lock chamber walls, rising and falling with the water and the ship:
Our boat is going down, so now we need to close the upper gate.
On most of the locks of the Volga-Kama cascade they are made in the form of a lifting wall:
Pay attention to the “teeth” that barely emerged from the water - this is a fixed base, a fortified wall that helps the gate withstand the pressure of the enormous mass of the reservoir.
Look how small the distance is from them to the upper boundary of the water (4 meters)!
A vessel with a draft of more than 3.6 m simply will not pass here (40 cm is the reserve required by regulations). And if, due to low water, as occurred this summer, the water level in the reservoir drops slightly, then smaller ships will no longer be able to pass.
At the Cheboksary hydroelectric power station, such a strict limitation arose due to the fact that the reservoir level was not raised to the design height. At the design level of 68 meters, the gate will need to be raised slightly, but the threshold will already be 6 m, which is guaranteed to be enough for all Volga ships.
Upper gate close up:
Here we see working and emergency gates duplicating them at the same time (the airlock is completely filled with water).
Emergency gates are needed in case of failure or planned repair of working gates.
When there are no locking ships, it is possible to carry out routine maintenance of the mechanisms, which is what we are seeing now.
Using a theodolite, the gate deflection is monitored:
Just imagine, this iron giant still bends noticeably under the pressure of water in the reservoir - up to 1.5 cm for emergency gates and less than a centimeter for working gates!
The lifting mechanism at the gate is hydraulic:
Oil pumps for servicing the upper gate:
There are always a lot of birds in the locks:
Because here it is convenient to pick up fish that remain on the gate rising from the water:
Let's move on to the lower gate.
Again, on most Volga locks they are made in the form of huge double doors:
When closed, the doors converge at a noticeable angle to resist the pressure of water in the airlock chamber:
At the Cheboksary hydroelectric power station, special measures are in place to ensure that water flowing out of the lock chamber does not erode the shore. Some of it drains out from under the gate (seething water in the picture), and some of it is far from the gateway and from the shore - towards the middle of the Volga:
To avoid waves when filling the lock chamber, special measures are also provided here - a complex distribution system that dampens the speed of water flow and distributes it evenly throughout the lock. Some of these special cameras are visible from the outside. They remained unfinished because they then decided not to raise the water to the design level. Now, if there is still a rise, we will have to complete the construction:
Finally, the water from the sluice is released, the lower gate can be opened:
Let's take a closer look in the vicinity of the lower gate:
Directly under the bridge, above the emergency gate, you can see rails that seem to break off into an abyss. They were used during construction, and can still be used now - you just need to lower the large beam, which is visible at the top left, directly under the bridge - this is nothing more than a movable span of a railway bridge. It will lie across the gateway, and the rails will continue!
What else interesting can you see?
For example, a utility yard between airlock chambers:
And some brutal designs for a snack:
And here is the barge leaving the lock:
Allowing you to vary the water level within its limits. The transfer of vessels through a shipping lock is carried out by sequential transfer to an adjacent chamber after the water level in them is equalized. The use of locks is mainly aimed at making bodies of water with different water levels more suitable for navigation.
Using gateways in channels
During the construction of the first artificial canals, which were built on, as a rule, fairly flat, non-mountainous areas of the terrain, their engineers and builders preferred to build contours if hills or lowlands got in the way of the canal. However, lengthening the canal entailed an excessive increase in the cost of its construction and increased the duration of passage of a ship through it. To solve this problem, gateways began to be used. Further, as technical knowledge and capabilities improved, more and more new solutions began to be used to overcome obstacles: aqueducts, tunnels, dams. And in each of these structures they continued to use locks, which from those times to this day have become an integral part of almost any hydraulic structure.
See also
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
See what “Water lock” is in other dictionaries:
A system for transporting passengers and goods connecting Zaporozhye with nearby territories along the Dnieper River. History The appearance of water transport in Zaporozhye is due to the historical location of settlements, on the site of which the city was later formed according to ... Wikipedia
Coordinates: 52°13′50″ N. w. 11°42′04″ E. d. / ... Wikipedia
I’ve been wanting to write this post for a long time, but I kept thinking about which way to approach it. Now everything has formed into one whole. So now I will tell you about gateways.
Locks on canals and rivers are the most important hydraulic structures that enable navigation. I will not abuse terminology and will describe everything in simple words.
A lock is a huge bathtub-elevator, with the help of which a ship can be raised or lowered to a significant height when the water levels change.
There are sealed gates on both sides of the gateway. In this photo, the lower gate is open and the upper gate is closed (raised).
2. Gateways are not only complex technical structures, they are also beautiful. On the Moscow Canal they are decorated with towers. 
3. Gateway No. 3 is rightfully considered the most beautiful gateway; it is decorated with models of Columbus caravels. 
4. To lift the ship, the ship enters the lock, after which the lower gates are closed, forming a sealed “bath”, the lock chamber is filled with water. The ship rises with the water. 
5. The height difference at one gateway is 8 meters, this is the height of a three-story building. After the lock is filled, the upper gate is lowered and the ship moves on. 
To make it clearer, I have prepared a video. Since the locking process is slow, at times the video is sped up; the entire process of going through the lock took about 30 minutes.
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