Hearth wall

In civil engineering, a hearth wall is a wall at the foot of a dam or a dam , usually on the side facing the water.

Hearth walls serve to lengthen the seepage path , to contain the flow below the dam or to prevent water losses and to avoid the risk of ground failure due to the control and measuring devices installed there.

Often hearth walls are provided with a control passage. In this case, an injection seal (or the sealing curtain ) can also be replaced by means of the hearth wall .