Floods have always been the most important threat to St. Petersburg. Now, the city is protected a dam, which was built over 30 years.
Mistakes in the construction of a protective hydraulic structure could have been fatal. Therefore, in Leningrad in 1983-1984, they created a general hydraulic model of the Neva Delta and the Neva Bay on a scale of 1 to 500. In laboratory conditions, engineers staged flood situations, monitored currents and waves, checked the speed of water flows and pressure drops.
The model occupied about 6,000 sq. meters. It was placed in a giant pool with a total area of about 8,000 sq. meters. The layout was equipped with 200 sensitive sensors. During the simulation of flooding, water from the Gulf of Finland was supplied at a speed of 2,000 liters per second.
But, not all citizens welcomed the idea of building a dam. Therefore, access to the model was opened to all comers. Spectators were invited to climb the bridge over the “water area”, where they were shown the device in action.
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