Windamere Dam
Encyclopedia
Windamere Dam is 69-metre, earth and rock fill embankment dam
on the Cudgegong River
near Mudgee, New South Wales
, Australia
. The Cudgegong River eventually flows into the Burrendong Dam
reservoir. The dam was built by the New South Wales Department of Water Resources to supply water for irrigation, stock and domestic demands and was completed in 1984. Geotechnical problems included excessive grout takes in highly fractured rock in the dam foundation.
The dam foundations are weathered Devonian conglomerates, sandstones and shales. The spillway is located about 1 km away from the dam in mostly unweathered Ordovician andesite. The spillway is an unlined rock cutting that provided all the rock fill required for the construction of the dam embankment. If a spillway had been built in the weathered sedimentary rocks at the dam site full concrete lining would have been required.
Embankment dam
An embankment dam is a massive artificial water barrier. It is typically created by the emplacement and compaction of a complex semi-plastic mound of various compositions of soil, sand, clay and/or rock. It has a semi-permanent waterproof natural covering for its surface, and a dense, waterproof...
on the Cudgegong River
Cudgegong River
The Cudgegong River is a tributary of the Macquarie River in New South Wales. It rises near Rylstone and flows generally north-west past Mudgee it flows past the edge of Gulgong and then into Lake Burrendong which is created by Burrendong Dam on the Macquarie River. Windamere Dam on the Cudgegong...
near Mudgee, New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. The Cudgegong River eventually flows into the Burrendong Dam
Burrendong Dam
Burrendong Dam is a Rock-fill dam with a clay core across the Macquarie River upstream of Wellington in New South Wales, Australia.The dam impounds Lake Burrendong and is filled by the waters from the Macquarie and Cudgegong rivers....
reservoir. The dam was built by the New South Wales Department of Water Resources to supply water for irrigation, stock and domestic demands and was completed in 1984. Geotechnical problems included excessive grout takes in highly fractured rock in the dam foundation.
The dam foundations are weathered Devonian conglomerates, sandstones and shales. The spillway is located about 1 km away from the dam in mostly unweathered Ordovician andesite. The spillway is an unlined rock cutting that provided all the rock fill required for the construction of the dam embankment. If a spillway had been built in the weathered sedimentary rocks at the dam site full concrete lining would have been required.