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What Is Canal Lining

Canal lining involves providing an impermeable layer along the bed and sides of a canal to improve its life and discharge capacity and reduce seepage. The key advantages of canal lining are reducing water losses by 60-80%, which saves on pumping costs, reducing seepage to prevent waterlogging, allowing higher flow velocities and smaller canal dimensions, and reducing maintenance needs. The two main types of canal lining are earthen (compacted earth or soil-cement) and hard surfaces (cement concrete, brick, plastic, or boulder).

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
640 views6 pages

What Is Canal Lining

Canal lining involves providing an impermeable layer along the bed and sides of a canal to improve its life and discharge capacity and reduce seepage. The key advantages of canal lining are reducing water losses by 60-80%, which saves on pumping costs, reducing seepage to prevent waterlogging, allowing higher flow velocities and smaller canal dimensions, and reducing maintenance needs. The two main types of canal lining are earthen (compacted earth or soil-cement) and hard surfaces (cement concrete, brick, plastic, or boulder).

Uploaded by

Fiaz Gujjar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is canal lining?

An impermeable layer is provided at the bed and sides of canal to improve


the life and discharge capacity of canal known as canal lining. Generally
seepage can result in losses of 30 40 % of irrigation water in canals, so
we can reduce the effect of seepage by providing lining to the canal.

Advantages of Canal Lining:


An important reason for lining a canal can be the reduction in water
losses, as water losses in unlined irrigation canals can be high. Canals
that carry from 30 to 150 liters/sec can lose 10 to 15% of this flow by
seepage and water consumption by weeds. Lining a canal will not
completely eliminate these losses, but roughly 60 to 80% of the water
that is lost in unlined irrigation canals can be saved by a hard-surface
lining. 42 Canal lining Minimizing water losses is very important, and
especially so in schemes where irrigation water is pumped. Reduced water
losses means less water to pump and thus a reduction in pumping costs.

Seepage reduction:
If canal banks are highly permeable, the seepage of water will cause very
wet or waterlogged conditions, or even standing water on adjacent fields
or roads. Lining of such a canal can solve this problem, since the

permeability of a lined canal bank is far less than that of an unlined bank,
or may even be zero, depending on the lining material.

Reduced canal dimensions:


The roughness resistance to flow of a lined canal is less than that of
an unlined canal, and thus the flow velocity will be higher in the lined
canal when the canal bed slope is the same. Moreover, the hard surface of
the lining material allows a higher velocity compared to an earthen canal
surface as it is not so easily eroded. As discussed earlier, canal discharge
is the product of the cross-section of a canal and the velocity of the flow.
Therefore, with the higher velocity allowable and obtainable in lined
canals, the canal cross-section for a lined canal can be smaller than that
of an unlined canal.

Reduced maintenance:
A surface lining, such as concrete, brick or plastic, on the canal prevents
the growth of plants and discourages hole-making by rats or termites, and
so the maintenance of a lined canal can be easier and quicker than that of
an unlined canal. Moreover, the higher velocity that can safely be allowed
in the lined canal prevents the small particles of soil carried in the water
from settling out, accumulating and causing siltation.
Above mentioned are the major uses of canal lining and some other uses
are:

To avoid piping through and under channel banks

To avoid water logging of adjacent land

To reduce movement of contaminated ground water plumes

To control vegetation in canals

Types of canal linings:


Mainly there are two types of canal linings:
1. Earthen type lining
2. Hard surface lining

Earthen type canal linings:


It is sub-divided into 2 major types:
Compacted earth lining
If suitable earthen material is available near the site of construction, or is
in-situ, a lining of compacted earth is an inexpensive and efficient means
of controlling seepage. Compaction reduces soil pore sizes by displacing
air and water. Reduction in void size increases the density, compressive
strength and shear strength of the soil and reduces permeability. This is
accompanied by a reduction in volume and settlement of the surface.
Proper compaction is essential to increase the stability and frost
resistance (where required) and to decrease erosion and seepage losses.

Soil cement lining


Soil-cement linings are constructed with mixtures of sandy soil, cement
and water, which harden to a concrete-like material. The cement content
should be from 2-8% of the soil by volume. However, larger cement
contents are used. For the construction of soil-cement linings two
methods are in general use: (1) the dry-mix method and (2) the plastic
mix method. For erosion protection and additional strength in large
channels, the layer of soil-cement is sometimes covered with coarse soil.
It is recommended the soil-cement lining should be protected from the
weather for seven days by spreading approximately 50mm of soil, straw
or hessian bags over it and keeping the cover moistened to allow proper
curing. Water sprinkling should continue for 28 days following installation.

Hard surface Canal linings:


It is sub divided into:
Cement concrete lining :
Concrete linings are widely used, with benefits justifying their relatively
high cost. They are tough, durable, relatively impermeable and
hydraulically efficient. Concrete linings are suitable for both small and
large channels and both high and low flow velocities. They fulfil every
purpose of lining.
There are several procedures of lining using cement concrete:

Cast in situ lining

Shotcrete lining

Precast concrete lining

Cement mortar lining

Brick lining:
The canal is said to be lined with bricks when the sides and bed are
protected with brick surfacing laid in cement mortar.

Plastic lining:
As a modern technique use of plastics in canal lining holds good
promise. There are three types of plastic membranes which are used in

canal lining, namely:


Low density poly ethylene

High molecular high density polythene

Polyvinyl chloride
The plastic as a material for canal lining offers certain characteristic
advantages like negligible weight, easy for handling, spreading and
transport, immune to chemical action and speedy construction. The
plastic film is spread on the prepared subgrade of the canal. To anchor the
membrane on the banks V trenches are provided. The film is then
covered with protective soil cover.

Boulder lining:
This type of lining is constructed with dressed stone blocks laid in mortar.
Properly dressed stones are not available in nature. Irregular stone blocks
are dressed and chipped off as per requirement. It makes the type costly.
When roughly dressed stones are used for lining, the surface is rendered
rough which may put lot of resistance to low. Technically the coefficient of
rugosity will be higher. Thus the stone lining is limited to the situation
where loss of head is not an important consideration and where stones
are available at moderate cost.

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