Dam Russian

Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power plant, Sept. 3, 2009.  (AP Photo/Vitaly Bezrukikh)

Came across this photo on Quora, but no explanation, so I looked it up and found the Sayano-Shushenskaya power plant catastrophe. As long as rotating machinery is operating smoothly, you don't think about it too much. When things get out of whack and it does start vibrating more than tolerable, the general solution is to turn it off. In a well run organization, the guy on the spot has the authority to turn the machine off if he sees trouble brewing. In Russia, with their long tradition of Communist stupidity [tm], that wasn't the case.

Finding the cause of a vibration and fixing it is something of a black art, meaning I don't really know how it's done. You need bearings with very minimal tolerance, which usually means you can't wiggle the shaft. That would be a little tough to do when the shaft weighs a zillion tons. You can do a static balance by grinding off bits on the heavy side, if you can find the heavy side. But this might not be enough on a machine with powerful forces, like megatons of high pressure water, acting on it.

There is joke about an engineer, a vibration problem and chalk mark that's been floating around. Turns out it's a true story. The Russians could have used this guy.

Sayano-Shushenskaya sounds vaguely Japanese, but it's not, it's Russian. Hydroelectric plants are usually located next to a dam, and whenever I think of a Russian dam, I think of James Bond:


Goldeneye Intro
Empire has the story behind this stunt. When I first saw this I thought James was jumping on the upstream side of the dam. I don't know how I got that impression, except that why would you jump on the downstream side? You could just walk up to the downstream side, you wouldn't have to make this spectacular jump. Maybe that is why I am not in the movie business.

Verzasca Dam

This dam however isn't in Russia, it's in Switzerland.

Sayano-Shushenkaya Dam - Olga Saliy

The Sayano-Shushenkaya Dam is about 2,000 miles east of Moscow, about half way to the Pacific Ocean. It's the biggest one in Russia.

Iaman sent me a link about this subject. Great minds think alike.