Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

This week has by far been the most enjoyable and rewarding since arriving on the project as within 3 days the site now looks like a bridge – a somewhat unfinished bridge but we are now technically bridging one side to the other. At the start of day 1 of the lift programme I thought it was going to be one of the worst weeks so far as the 220T crane arrived on site 2 hrs before we were expecting the first delivery but when I asked to inspect the lifting gear in accordance with the lift plan they did not have the correct swift lifts. As the cast in lifting points are manufactured by a company called Reid we are required to use swift lift clutches that are also manufactured by Reid due to an early lift failure incident. Their swift lifts were not but they were also so battered they had no identifiable marks or inspection tags on them so I had to stop the lift from going ahead. When talking to the crane company head offfice they then said they don’t own any swift lifts manfactured by Reid and that then would have to hire them in. The fact that they had been told about this over month ago and the point had been reiterated to them on several occassions and the fact that this particular crane company does the majority of lifts across the project suddenly highlighted that this had been previously sweeped under the carpet, until they came across the ‘by the book army bloke’ as my supervisor jokingly referred to me as. To me there was very clear direction from the Construction Manager about the use of proprietary lifting systems following on from the lifting incident earlier in the year so how this hadn’t been spotted before I don’t know. In the end we managed to find technical literature about the Reid anchor points and swift lifts regarding the tolerances and compatibility of other makes and the crane cmpany delivered suiatable swift lifts with the correct certification and we had special dispesation from the Construction Manager under the guidance of the superintendent to proceed. We finally lifted the first bean at 1330 which was about 4.5 hours late with all the other extendabale flatbeds lined up down the main road. Once we got going we managed to rig, lift and place very quickly and we positioned the 9 beams for that day by 1600 so we made some time up but this did have an effect on later delivery’s.

 This is not actually above my head! H&S has been followed.

The pre-cast yard told me later that day we would have 10 beams coming the following morning as they had managed to get hold of an additional truck. We actually received 8 trucks has they said because we had been too slow on the first day they had other priorities and so did not have time to load the last 2. Later on the second day they called agian saying the knock on effect would be they now couldn’t deliver the final 5 beams on sat so would mon be OK. I said that mon would not be OK at all and that they were contracted to deliver the remaining beams on the saturday and any additional costs ( the crane was $8000 per day plus a $6000 call out charge) would be forwarded to them. It then all got a little ugly and they refused to deliver on principle. It transpired they were trying to save themselves a little money by using a particular haulage company over the other and due to the time lost on the first day they didn’t have time to load the final trucks on fri afternoon. If they had loaded the trucks in the correct order or gone with the other haulage company which is based locally to them in Newcastle as oposed to the other in Sydney (3 hour drive) they/we wouldn’t have had this problem. They then said that we would have to pay for them opening up their yard on a saturday to load the remaining beams which we refused as by the second day we had made the time up and the first 5 trucks had planty of time to get back to the yard to be loaded. In the end everyone calmed down as they realised it was fri afternoon and we agreed to argue about the cost after the beams have been delivered. So the fallout of last week is that the pre-cast yard (civilbuild) want to claim for their yard opening on sat which they have unofficailaly quoted as about $4000 and we will be claiming aginst the crane company for loss of working hours and possibly the yard opening costs if it is decided we have to pay. The advice of the commercial team is that this is just civilbuild getting touchey at the end of their contract as they are trying to place a number of similar claims for past work. Considering we paid them a shade under $200,000 for 22 PSC beams of dubious quality (some of the finish and height levels are terrible and noted by the clients visits during the lifts) which equals about $9000 per beam they should probably stay quiet as we could make their life very difficult and insist remedial work is carried out on alot of the beams which we may yet do.

 Completed lifting operation.

As the beams have now all been installed there is a sense of relief as rail can now come through without us getting in each others way. For me the pressure is about to increase as the Project Engineer who’s wing I am under is being send to another project so I am to receive rapid promotion by default I think rather than ability. I will be the only engineer on the bridge and there will be a few wrap up issues for the other 3 bridges so I seem to have jumped up to a Senior Project Engineer and will report directly to the Construction Manager. This really means I need to fully understand the cost/commercail aspect of what I am doing as I will be responsible for every dollar sepnt on the bridge and will have to justify it to the construction manager every month as part of the forecast and accrual process. We are currently about $50,000 over budget when compared against the tender costs – I just need to understand whether that is good or bad!

This weeks activity has been focussed on preparations to pour 3 suspended slabs by the end of the month to reach a payment milestone. This has been delayed by high level changes to task priorities that has affected progress. On setting out the first slab it was found that a 300×300 column that was set out to the architectural measurements was positioned on the edge of a slab edge-beam also set out to architectural measurements. The issue was that the structural design of the column assumed that it sat centrally in the beam and was therefore not sufficient for its current position.

This was raised as an RFI to both the architect and structural engineer to resolve the discrepancy in drawings.

Engineering Issue and resolution

The engineering issue here is that because the column was designed to be loaded equally the reinforcement is now not sufficient to withstand the additional bending. To resolve this there were 2 options.

1. Extend the slab outwards to move the beam centrally on the column
2. Insert a transfer beam to distribute the load between the 1000mm diameter column and the 300x300mm column.

Both of these options created issues. The slab reinforcement was designed to the structural dimensions, therefore was sufficient to accommodate the move out of the beam to sit centrally on the column, but the architect could not accept this option as it would affect the internal dimensions of the control room below making it too small for the intended contents. The second option required a redesign of the structure, rework to the formwork already placed, and the order of additional steel for the beam.

The decision had to be the transfer beam, which as it was designed could be designed to 450mm deep and therefore not affect the formwork already placed significantly. The steel was ordered immediately on a priority to arrive the following day. At the time of leaving site on Friday, all was in order and good to go – I will find out Monday I guess.

The managerial issue is that there was a discrepancy in the 2 designs (architectural and structural) that was not picked up sooner. The time it took to respond to the RFI took approximately 4 days after many to and fro emails between the architect and the structural engineer. A face-to-face meeting that may have taken 30minutes could have rectified this immediately. The final issue is that of costing. The cost of redesign of the beam should be borne by the structural engineer as it is the architectural design that measurements are taken from. Additionally the cost of the additional steel should also be covered by the structural engineer however the relatively small amount of steel required for the beam (3.5m long) will probably just be covered by JHG to maintain relationships.

In other news, the reorganisation is apparently underway and should be in effect on Mon. The notice period of the weekend is probably not enough time for a full handover so I am expecting a fair degree of turmoil this week. It has been good to catch up with the Knowles and Dollimores this week at their leaving parties, and we are having a RE BBQ at ours this week as a final send off.