The “El Cuchillo” Dam, located about 60 miles Northeast of Monterrey, Mexico is one of the largest dams in Northern Mexico. It serves as one of Monterrey’s main water reservoirs. The Monterrey metropolitan area is Mexico’s second-largest metro area and has experienced devastating drought conditions in recent years.
Although this dam had enough water to supply Monterrey, due to the growth of the metro area, the existing aqueduct was limited in its capacity to adequately supply enough water for the millions of families it currently serves. Therefore, the Mexican government invested in building a secondary aqueduct to meet the city’s increasing demand for water.
By Bob Donnelly, Contributor
The Project
The project to build a secondary aqueduct was managed by the Mexican National Water Commission and was completed in a record time of one year. One of the critical assets for this project was the main isolation valve from the dam to the aqueduct.
Once the new aqueduct was completed the Water Commission had an extremely short lead time, eight weeks, for valve suppliers to deliver an 84-inch AWWA C-516 Class 150B Butterfly Valve.
Additionally, the valve selected had to undergo a rigorous accreditation process in Mexico City with the Commission’s engineering staff before being approved and accepted for the project.
The Challenge
As the average lead times for the specified valve suppliers were a minimum of 6 months, many valve suppliers considered from European and American could not meet the eight-week delivery requirement and were disqualified for the project.
Once a manufacturer was selected, the challenge was to construct the valve within the strict timeline. Due to the urgency of the project the valve was flown from China to Mexico and the manufacturer was able to deliver in the 60-day time frame.
Max-Seal management working closely with their Mexican Representative (Termotran, S.A. DE C.V.) and Chinese man- manufacturing team, flawlessly coordinated every step in the process. The valve was delivered to meet the Commission’s delivery requirement.
A full dossier with MTR’s, Hydrotest and Seal test certificates, Hardness test reports, PMI (Positive Material Identification) reports, Liquid Penetrant Test re- ports, Coating/Painting reports, Welding Process reports (WPS, PQR, and WPQ) as the body seat is a Welding Overlay process, Operation Test reports, and a full IOM, were provided along with the valve. All these reports exceeded the AWWA C516 requirements.
A Limit Switch Box on the Gear Box, which was not requested in the project specifications was also provided, which the end user engineers found very useful for remote position monitoring of the valve was also supplied.
Final Thoughts
The value of these additional components is that if repairs are requested in this aqueduct, these components can isolate the aqueduct from the dam – a critical functionality. For this reason, a manual gear operator was provided. The new aqueduct was placed in operation on September 13th. It was inaugurated by the President of Mexico and the Governor of the State.
