ASHLAND CITY, Tenn. (Nov. 15, 2012) The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District is scheduled to reopen Cheatham Lock 6 p.m., today following a one-month closure for major maintenance repairs to hydraulic and mechanical equipment damaged during the 2010 flood along with other routine maintenance.
“This is a major project which includes replacing two filling and two emptying lock chamber valves, valve stems, machinery bases and hydraulic cylinders plus replacing four miter gate hydraulic cylinders and installing new electric-driven hydraulic power units in machinery houses,” said Billie Boyd, lockmaster at Cheatham.
Also included were replacing grease lines, conduit runs, pulling new wire for controls, installing new bushings for the giant valves that replaced some that were installed in 1949 and repairing gate sector gear machinery bases where concrete had deteriorated over time, according to Boyd.
“We installed new controls on operating switchboards and upgraded controls for new hydraulic power units to permit operations using pushbuttons or joy sticks for lock gates among other things,” Boyd said. “Joy sticks allow a variable flow in the hydraulics giving the lock operator complete control of gate swing and timing,” she added.
The land side filling valve with its associated machinery and gate cylinder along with their controls still have to be installed and can be done with the lock open to navigation. Until such time, operating the lock on the one filling valve will slow lockages down but will not stop traffic, according to Boyd.