The developed technology is a prefabricated concrete product wedge that could be used as protection against erosion due to water flow with high flow rates and high speeds. 

The design ACUÑA blocks is based on the development of negative pressures in the stepped spillways subjected to flush flow immediately downstream of the riser, which are transmitted to the contact between the block and the support base, creating a stabilizing suction between.

“Overtopping is the main and exclusive cause of 31% of the embankment dams break, rising to 49 % when counted as an associated cause to another phenomenon”

Increased security and compliance with new regulations

• There has been growing concern about the safety of dams and ponds, performing an effort to track and monitor the status of operation and safety of them. A fact that will force developers of new earth dams or ponds to build according to more restrictive safety criteria [Ministry of Agriculture, Spain], and people responsible of the ponds in service, to review its design, primarily their spillways to prevent potential and undesirable overtopping.

Construction of new infrastructure in developing countries

• Of the total world population there are 1,000 million people still lack access to potable water, mainly in Africa, South Asia and Latin America [UNICEF]. The problem is that although there are enough resources, they are not well distributed, nor geographically, nor temporarily. A solution to address this latter issue is to use supply systems in which infrastructure such as water storage reservoirs typically consume a significant portion of the execution budget.

“The spillway is one of the largest investments in any embankment dam, generally constituting at least 30% of the overall budget”

• Worldwide there are about 26,624 large embankment dams [The International Commission on Large Dams] and an undetermined number of ponds.

• Only in Spain there are 1,300 large dams and about 90,000 ponds [National Committee on Large Dams, SPANCOLD, and Technical Association of Ponds and Small Dams, ATEBA], many of which must be adapted to the new regulations in the medium term.

• Solution for expanding the capacity of relief embankment dams and ponds, allowing the spill without turning to conventional costly solutions such as concrete annexed works.

• Easily transportable prefabricated element

• Ease and speed of placing.

• Reducing economic costs: it can reduce the cost of the structure evacuation of excess flow rates up to 60% over a conventional solution

 “First dam having a service spillway of wedge shaped blocks was built in Spain: the Barriga Dam. The budget of the spillway has been reduced from 38 % of the work with a conventional solution, to 12.7 % with the wedge-shaped blocks”