Stress tests have been carried out successfully on the third set of locks at the Panama Canal, Salini Impregilo has announced.
The waters of Gatun Lake, one of the largest artificial bodies of its kind in the world, began flooding the new canal in Panama yesterday on the side of the Atlantic Ocean. This manoeuvre was the first important stress-test to date of the Third Set of Locks, which is being built on the Central American isthmus by an international consortium led at the operational level by Salini Impregilo. The same test will be conducted on the other system of locks on the Pacific side at the end of the month.
The opening of the valves is the first phase of the flooding of the locks to test the Italian-built sluice gates and the electromechanical system. Further tests will be conducted on the system over three next three to four months.
"The initial flooding of the locks of the new Panama Canal is a historic moment for all of us. At this moment, it's without a doubt the most complex project in the world from an engineering point of view," said Pietro Salini, chief executive of Salini Impregilo. "It's a $5 billion project of extraordinary significance not only at the technical level but also for the impact that it will have on global trade."
The Panama Canal project has seen the excavation of 50Mm3 of earth, the pouring of 5Mm3 of concrete, the use of 290,000 tonnes of iron and involved over 10,000 workers. The sluice doors are - on average - about 30m tall, 10 meters wide and 58m long, with each weighing more than 3000 tonnes.
