Ship locks for river traffic to bypass the Three Gorges Dam
- There are two series of ship locks installed near the dam
- Each of them is made up of five stages with transit time at around four hours
- Maximum vessel size is 10,000 tons
- The locks are 280 m long, 35 m wide,5 m deep (918 × 114 × 16.4 ft)
- These locks are staircase locks, whereby inner lock gate pairs serve as both the upper gate and lower gate
- The gates are the vulnerable hinged type, which, if damaged, could temporarily render the entire flight unusable
- As there are separate sets of locks for upstream and downstream traffic, this system is more water efficient than bi-directional staircase locks
IMPACT ON SHIPPING
- The freight capacity of the river increased six times
- The cost of shipping was reduced by 25%
- The total capacity of the ship locks is expected to reach 100 million tonnes per year
- Shipping will become safer, since the gorges are notoriously dangerous to navigate
- Ships with much deeper draft will be able to navigate 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) upstream from Shanghai all the way to Chongqing
