Past Issues
Issue #014
June 23, 2026
At Malpasset the arch shell was sound. The rock beneath the abutment was not, and more than 420 people died for it. The most consequential concrete on a dam is the part you bury and never see again: the grout curtain in the foundation.
Issue #013
June 16, 2026
A dam under load is never silent. It reports on itself through its instruments, each one the early warning for a different way to fail. The problem on India's ageing dams is not what the instruments say. It is that many have stopped speaking.
Issue #012
June 9, 2026
A cement tanker reaches the dam site. The mill certificate passes IS 269 on every line. Three lifts later the thermocouples read hotter, and nobody touched the mix. The two numbers that explain it are not on the certificate.
Issue #011
June 2, 2026
The monsoon is breaking over the coast. The next interrupted pour will form a joint. Whether it is hot, warm, cold, or super cold is not the QC engineer's opinion. It is the product of two numbers, and Teesta Low Dam Stage-IV wrote down what each one demands.
Issue #010
May 26, 2026
A 7-day cube reads 1.25 MPa against a 17.5 MPa target. Every conventional acceptance criterion says reject. The roller-compacted concrete in the cube delivered 24.50 MPa at 365 days. The two RCC dams that taught Indian practice why early-age cube failure is sometimes the correct behaviour.
Issue #009
May 19, 2026
Spillway potholes between one and six metres deep, in each of 26 blocks of the dam long described as the world's largest masonry dam. What recent inspections at Nagarjuna Sagar are saying about ageing concrete infrastructure under the CDSE clock.
Issue #008
May 12, 2026
August 1979, Machchhu II. December 2026, every existing specified dam in India. Forty-two years from a disaster to a law. Seven months left until the deadline that law set.
Issue #007
May 5, 2026
Polavaram's 1.5-metre plastic concrete diaphragm wall, the first of its kind in India, was damaged across two monsoons because the upper cofferdam was not built up in time. The pre-monsoon staging lesson before May becomes June.
Issue #006
April 28, 2026
IS 7861 sets a 40 degree C threshold. ACI 305.1 sets a 35 degree C ceiling. Hoover Dam would have taken 125 years to cool naturally. The Watch / Intervene / Stop framework for summer placement on dam sites.
Issue #005
April 21, 2026
Willow Creek Dam leaked so badly that a full year of grouting was needed after first filling. The lesson it taught the RCC industry is still misunderstood on Indian sites today.
Issue #004
April 14, 2026
India's third RCC dam needed 210 tonnes of fly ash per day from a thermal plant 320 km away. 29 trucks. One narrow Himalayan road.
Issue #003
April 7, 2026
AAR worked silently inside Rihand Dam for 25 years before snapping 9 of 10 rebars in a single column. How the most dangerous deterioration mechanism hides in plain sight.
Issue #002
March 31, 2026
When your 28-day cylinder breaks low, is the concrete deficient or is the test wrong? The NYC lab fraud scandal that faked results on 120 projects.
Issue #001
March 24, 2026
How a monsoon flood forced India's first RCC dam switch at Ghatghar, costing Rs 500 million and 13 months. Plus: 80% of India's dams are over 25 years old.
Concrete Pulse is our weekly newsletter on concrete technology for dam and infrastructure engineers. New issues every Tuesday at 10:00 AM IST. Subscribe to receive each issue directly in your inbox, or browse the archive above.
