Does China have the civil engineering skills to build the three gorges dam?

Question

I understand the dam is nearly completed but, are their civil engineering standards really adequate? Or maybe the standards are fine but how about the rigor to enforce those standards to be used, I could imagine in a couple of years the dam will start to wash out.....not that I am saying our rigor to enforce standards is higher (look at the big dig)

Answer 1

The majority of advanced degrees in engineering in the US are granted to Asian students, so China's engineers as a whole are better educated than in the US, so they undoubtedly have the technical ability. Whether or not the government has safeguards in place to ensure that the dam's designers and builders don't cut costs is the million dollar question. The Chinese government tends to place little value on individual lives if individual considerations cause compromises to the nation as a whole, and China has an immediate need for increased electric capacity, so the government probably places expediency over long-term predictability.

In the US, lawsuits and liability make it less costly to to build safe dams that building a dam that fails. People cannot sue the government in China. .

Answer 2

Yes-

Civil engineering is an international job.

Remember the chief export of the US is education. Most of the students in advanced degrees are foreign students.

In today's market, the location of the job has little bearing on who the designer, contractor, or even owner is.

In fact a few engineering firms are sending their designs to china and having the Chinese firms design the project using American codes, and sending it back. This is a recognized threat to the engineering industry.

Cheers and good luck.

Answer 3

If there is one thing I would not worry about in this world, it is the education of Chinese engineers. They probably have some of the best in the world. If you ever dealt with a Chinese scientist or engineering student who has been to a top notch university, you would know.

On the other hand Yahoo answers is a great place to learn how bad the US educational system is. Most people here can't even write their own language. You can bet that's not the case for anyone who ever graduated from a Chinese school for the last 2000 years or so.

Answer 4

A lot of Chinese engineers received their education and learned their skills overseas. for example, here in canada there are many Chinese students in civil engineering faculties in many universities across the nation. As early as the beginning of the 1960's, there have been many sucessful graduates from China, and with the many exellent programs here in Canada it is only certain that Chinese engineers can build the dam sucessfully.

Answer 5

They can build same as here. They have nuclear bombs, they have sent rockets into space, they built the great Wall(which still stands today and can be seen from space) before north america was even discovered. They build heavy earth movers, electronics. and the like.
Look at your wrist watch. Where was it made? And that has to run continuously and accurately year after year after year.

Answer 6

They had outside help and the damn has a safety factor built into it. This is not their first dam. Did you have the same opinion when the Egyptions dammed the Nile.

Answer 7

Given that the consequences of failure might be a bullet in the back of the head, I think they may be well motivated to do a good job.

Answer 8

Well they manage to make the great wall or was it the great road?
And that is made by hand.