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Panama Canal Locks; Allowing Passage of Ships across the Isthmus of Panama

The Panama Canal Locks were the World's Largest Concrete Construction up until the Building of the Hoover Dam across the Colorado River. The Panama Canal locks are part of a system of man made channels, dams, and artificial lakes that connect the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean across the Isthmus of Panama. Since its completion in 1914 the Panama Canal has allowed shipping to cross the fifty mile wide isthmus at the narrowest part of the Americas. The Panama Canal locks allow ships to enter the system from either ocean and to be raised to the level of artificial Lake Gatun, 26 meters above sea level, to transit central Panama before being lowered to sea level on the other side.

The Panama Canal locks in total are almost two miles long if you include the concrete approaches. These locks have functioned for almost a hundred years since the completion of construction of the Panama Canal in 1914. They are expected to last much longer but will be allowed a period of maintenance when the Panama Canal Expansion project is completed in about ten years. At that time a larger set of locks and channels will augment the current system allowing for down time and maintenance of the current locks.

The following table shows lock sizes for the current Panama Canal locks and the projected Panama Canal Expansion set of locks.

Current and New Panama Canal Lock Comparison

The current Panama Canal lock system includes three sets of locks. These are the two step flight of locks at Miraflores and the one step flight at Pedro Miguel, both on the Pacific end of the Panama Canal. There is a triple flight of locks at Gatun on the Atlantic end of the Panama Canal.

All sets of Panama Canal locks are paired so that ship traffic can pass in both directions through the locks. However, larger ships cannot pass each other through the "Gaillard" or "Culebra" cut which is the ditch dug through a ridge in the central Panama mountains. This "cut" connects artificial Lake Gatun to the Pacific side of the Panama Canal system. The "lift" of the respective locks is 85 feet or 26 meters for the Gatun locks, 31 feet or 9.5 meters at Pedro Miguel, and between 43 feet or 13.1 meter and 64.5 feet or 19.7 meters at Miraflores, depending upon Pacific tides.

The new set of Panama Canal locks will have one set of locks on both ends of the Panama Canal.

Panama Canal Locks and Water Usage

Roughly two billion gallons of water a day flow down into the locks to fill them and out to the sea on both ends when the locks are drained to allow passage out the ocean end.

The new Panama Canal Locks will be built with adjacent basins to collect about sixty percent of the water used to operate the locks thus reducing the water usage per lock. The new Panama Canal locks will be much larger but will save water with use of the reservoirs. It expected that the new locks will use about seven percent less water than the current locks.

Lots of Concrete in the Panama Canal Lock System

The current Panama Canal locks are huge structures with a sixty foot thick central wall between the lock chambers. The side walls are 55 feet thick at the base and taper in steps to eight feet at the top.

The center wall of each of the Panama Canal locks has three tunnels running is full length. The lowest is a drainage tunnel, the next houses electrical cables, and the top is a passage for maintenance.

The new Panama Canal Expansion lock system will involve much larger locks and a different gate design.

Doors on the Panama Canal Locks

The current Panama Canal locks use a hinged door design. This requires shutting down one traffic lane if a door needs to be removed and taken to a dry dock for maintenance. The new Panama Canal locks will have a pair of sliding doors on each end. Each door will be wide enough to work by itself. Thus if a door is in need of repair it will be pulled into its recess in the adjacent wall and a bulkhead sealed to create a dry dock for repairs. The lock will continue to function while maintenance proceeds on the door in question.

Panama Canal Locks

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Technology-Transportation