Warragamba Dam 1948 / 1960 construction of current dam NSW

1948-1960: construction of current dam
In 1943 the Metropolitan Water, Sewerage and Drainage Board invited the geologist William Browne to investigate a proposed site. Browne found a more suitable site and continued as geological adviser until completion. The site was reviewed and approved by Dr John Savage, considered the pre-eminent expert in this field, and formally accepted by the Metropolitan Water, Sewerage and Drainage Board on 2 October 1946.[4] The Board appointed Thomas Upton as the engineer.
The Warragamba River flows through a gorge that varies in width from 300 to 600 metres (980 to 1,970 ft), and is 100 metres (330 ft) in depth. This gorge opens at its upper end into a large valley, the Burragorang Valley. This river configuration allows for a relatively short but high dam wall, in the gorge, to impound a vast quantity of water.
Dam construction began in 1948 and was completed in 1960. The resulting dam of the Warragamba River formed Lake Burragorang, which is one of the largest reservoirs for urban water supply in the world.[citation needed]
The dam wall comprises 1,612,000 cubic yards (1,232,000 m3) of concrete. It was laid as interlocking blocks roughly 17 metres (56 ft) on each side, which were later grouted together to form a continuous, monolithic wall. It is so large that engineers had to use two techniques to prevent the temperature from becoming too hot as the concrete set. One was to add ice to the wet concrete, the first application of this technique in Australia. The other was to embed cooling pipes into the concrete and circulate chilled water through the pipes. As a result, the dam wall was cooled in a few months instead of the estimated 100 years it would have taken to cool naturally.