Development of cost effective swimming pools for Sri Lanka

Abstract

Swimming is an ideal recreational activity in Sri Lanka since it is a tropical country. The island is blessed with beautiful sea beaches right round. However due to the financial limitations and other restrictions, majority of Sri Lankans are not so fortunate to have ready access to the sea coast. Thus, people really interested in swimming are directed to swimming pools constructed inland. As can be seen in recent times, Sri Lankan sport has gained some remarkable achievements. Once the facilities are provided, Sri Lanka may reach international level in swimming too. The main obstacle for all these is the non-availability of adequate number of swimming pools in Sri Lanka due to high capital cost involved. This exercise is to achieve cost effective structural forms for the construction of swimming pools for Sri Lanka. Conventional type pools are constructed using cantilever type retaining walls as vertical members designed to retain water limiting the crack width exerted by the water pressure. Highest cost is involved in the materials and workmanship associated with the walls. If this is reduced, many of the citizens will be able to afford to construct their own private swimming pools. The middle level schools may collect a nominal sum of money from parents and build the school swimming pool. Sports clubs and other institutions will also be interested to have their own pools. The operational and maintenance cost compared to the capital cost is very low and can be collected from the users of the pools very easily. First of all, a comprehensive literature survey was conducted to determine the alternative structural forms used in other countries. These alternatives were compared with the conventional forms. It was observed that there are more effective methods still not widely used in Sri Lanka. Direct application of these will not be suitable to Sri Lankan context. Hence certain modifications were made to match to our conditions. When these alternatives were still behind the expected effectiveness, further desk studies were carried out to invent more effective methods. The methods developed will not be suitable for sites with higher level of ground water. Construction of pools using this method without deep ends will be possible if the ground water table is 1m below the pool top level. Similarly pools with deep ends will be possible using this method when the ground water level is 2m below the pool top level. Again the soil needs to be firm for the use of this method. The structures needed for water treatment process were also studied to observe the effectiveness by changing the structural forms.