With unique characteristics and COVID-19 causing delays, the Mansfield Dam project became a task that required skill, creativity, and persistence. The Mansfield Dam is a hydroelectric dam built to tame the waters of the Colorado River, protecting Austin from flooding. It is the tallest dam in Texas, topping out at 750 feet MSL. The Mansfield Dam is 278 feet high, 7,089.39 feet long, contains 25 floodgates that weigh 50,000 pounds each, and has more than 3 miles of tunnels within it.
LCRA (Lower Colorado River Authority) began a $10.5 Million project to rejuvenate the massive flood gates. Massive cranes were used to place the gates then the dam was built around it. Now, each gate was to be carefully removed for the first time since their installation with mere inches to spare.
Within the dam there are over 3 miles of tunnels, most being service tunnels that lead to the various mechanisms to operate the flood gates. These tunnels have tracks embedded in the floor to allow machinery to move the heavy pieces of the gates and equipment around for maintenance.
HTS and DXS worked with LCRA to select Daikin equipment to install inside the tunnels for dehumidification of the tunnel system. There was very little room to work and over 8 feet of solid concrete had to be cored to run the refrigerant lines and communication wires to the Daikin VRV condensers.
A Daikin Vision air handling unit and VRV cooling and reheating units were selected and modified by ModWerks. Once the unit was ready, a special skate was designed and built to move the unit and fit it into a tight space inside of one of the tunnels. Once it was in place, DXS constructed a plan to get inside of it and complete the EK wiring.
HTS Controls will monitor the equipment with a Distech controls system and a custom building automation program. We are expected to commission this project sometime in mid-November. This was a cumulative effort from almost every unit at HTS in Central Texas.
