Archive
Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay (or the hard at Peterhead).
I’ve been trying to get this post up for the last 2 weeks, but after a slow start, things are really motoring along in the North. Summer has arrived, which means the heating is now only on in the evenings and it only rains every other day.
P 60 Bridge inspection platforms
This project is starting to see a little more life now. At about 51% completion I am on target for close out of Define by the beginning of September, although with no funding in FY 14/15 all the work will get kicked into the long grass. With Cessation of Production for Bruce sitting around the 2017 mark, there is no appetite for this work, the asset is more interested in squeezing the field for all it is worth.
At 51% most of the design work is now complete and the engineering is about to take over. My input has been limited to ensuring off-shore involvement and digging up answers to design team queries i.e. what are the standard railing panels used on the installation, will the current design allow sufficient access, are we too close to the process lines….with the general low profile of this project, getting answers to these questions has been like getting blood out of a stone.
The picture about is the layout of the inspection platform (inside the black circle) beneath the PUQ side of the P60 bridge. The query has been around the proximity of process flow lines (in yellow) and whether the jacking procedure can be conducted within the constrained space. My answer is yes, mainly as this is where the original scaffold would have sat anyhow, but getting confirmation from the inspection team is not going well at the moment. At the end of the day the design will go through a constructability review and the HAZID where an representative from the asset will be able to comment on these issues, but it would be preferable to put them to bed earlier.
All in all, it’s a fairly easy going project and it has been mostly running in the back ground. 16 July will see the HAZID (Hazard ID) meeting take place although I am yet to see any forward movement from WGPSN Tech Safety who are contractually obliged to run this process. Chris has warned me that if the Tech Safety rep is a dud, I will probably need to chair the HAZID, but I am fairly happy with that as my recent experiences with the Clair Coolers project have set me up well to step in should the need arise.
Bruce Caissons
Due to the project below, this one dropped off my radar the last couple of weeks until it appeared on the weekly Engineering Services update where specific projects and task are highlighted as a specific priority. Getting the decision to defer the re-instatement of the C13 Caisson has now become a high priority and so I am re-applying myself. I originally put together the document and analysis that brought together structural and operational reasons for deferring this project until 2015. While the decision to defer was taken verbally, nothing was documented leaving the collective Project and Mods arse flying in the wind. However, over the last couple of days I’ve re-invigorated the issue and look to be on track to get the decision signed off over the next few weeks.
Clair Coolers
This has had almost all of my attention over the last 3 weeks or so. From being brought into the project, I effectively took on the job of developing the Management of Change strategy in order to close out the project. BP has a relatively robust MOC system, but it is not designed for emergent projects such as this. Originally cited as a ‘like for like plus’ replacement this should not have been an issue, with very limited actual change being brought about. However, various opportunities to add value to the project surfaced and as previously described, the project is like for like no longer. Whereas a normal project would have had an Appraise, Select and Define stage prior to Execute, in this case Appraise and Select were skipped (Appriase – No project=no gas production=no money / Select – ‘Like for like’ = Previous version lasted 10 years, Life of field is about 10 years). Define and execute were essentially compressed into about 9 months with the Prime contractor responsible for the overall project, but with BP mech and process teams designing the coolers themselves. My role has been to manage the output of the most recent risk assessment, drive forward the process of ratification of these risks by the BP technical authorities, develop the strategy for engaging these individuals, examine technical issues surrounding residual risk and compile the evidence supporting the mitigation of said risks.
Picture of the Clair Coolers sitting in a hangar at Peterhead.
Cooler transport frames to get them off-shore safely.
This job has really developed my understanding of how BP do business. More importantly it has increased my understanding of how critical risk appreciation and management are to successfully executing a project. Ideal considering the up-coming HAZID for the Bruce bridge inspection platforms. There is a plan afoot to get off-shore over the next month or so to actually see the coolers getting fitted, but I am not raising my hopes to high as there is unlikely to be a lot of space off shore during the TAR.
In Other News
Hugo had his first birthday party last weekend and it was a great success. Next week he starts nursery as Corines parent will be heading home and she will be working half the week for Grampian housing association. I and Chris attended Kingswells Primary school yesterday for the third leg of our involvement in the Primary Engineer Scheme. This saw the children racing the shoebox cars that they had made over the previous two sessions. The vehicles were rolled down a ramp and measured for distance traveled and deviation from a center-line, with the children doing the launching, measuring and scoring. Chris’ teams put in a valiant effort but at the end of the day were resoundingly defeated, he might be the fastest man in all of Nairnshire but I am the king of the classroom!
Army chief visits Crossrail
A few photos of me chilling with an ex Squadron airborne brother under London.
It was ‘Uniform to Work Day’ yesterday and as a result I was instructed to show the CGS around some of the tunnels under London. I managed to get some good ‘facetime’ under my belt and even mentioned in the CRL news letter ‘working at Crossrail is full time Army officer Capt Mike Burton, currently on a nine month secondment to Bam Nuttall as part of his Professional Engineer Training and based at Fisher Street.’ Well done me!!!!
Thats right SQUADRON!!!!!!!!!
The Ring Beam Trilogy
Ok, so the last post took us to the point of trials taking place, in order to ascertain the correct construction method. As a result the number of reinforcement bars, from the piles into the ringbeam reinforcement, was reduced. THe designers conceded that there was only a requirement for 3 x bars/male pile to protrude into the ringbeam. These 3 bars would provide sufficient shear reinforcement and bond length (in order for the next phase of excavation, where the ring beam will be temporarily suspended). The designers did specify that 2 of the bars had to be on the near face and the other on the far face of the shaft.
With the reduced amount of bars requiring coupling, the 200mm SCL profile was easily achieved and the time required to couple the bars greatly reduced (from 8 per pile to 3 per pile). The ring beam reinforcement cage was put in place and the shuttering positioned ready for the concrete pour.
However, before the concrete pour can be started I had to do a pre pour check. This includes checking the reinforcement of the ring beam, ensuring the connections between the piles and ringbeam, checking the shuttering is as per the shuttering design etc. After reading Rich Farmers comment about the couplers on my last post, I had done some investigation and found that the Lenton Lock couplers ‘bolt heads will shear off when proper installation tightness has been reached, which allows for completely visual inspection’. AS you can see from the photo below, they had not!!!
In fact the sub contractors, nor the CRL supervisors had realised the huge oversight. I then checked the bolts and not only had they not been tightened sufficiently to shear off the bolt heads, they weren’t even finger tight. The result was the concrete pour was cancelled, the shuttering taken down and the couplers all tightened untill the bolt heads sheared off. I was as popular as a pork chop in a synagogue. However the cancelled concrete pour was a fraction of the price it would have been to rip out the concrete ring beam and start again, as there was no way of proving to CRL that the couplers would have held.
You would like to think the fun stopped there but it didn’t. The next saga was the concrete mix. The idea was to spray the concrete (C32/40) in behind the shuttering using the SCL machinery all ready in place. This apparatus had already sprayed the shaft piles with a regulating layer of 75mm and would be used later to do the 400mm layer once we got below the ring beam. However SCL concrete mix is very much different to the C32/40 mix that the ring beam is constructed from. THe first batch arrived, loaded into the pump and sent down the steel tube and then into the flexible rubber hose. However within 30 sec the dryer C32/40 mix had blocked the hose and steel tubes. THey then tried dropping the mix in behind the shuttering with the skip, it didn’t work. Because the concrete had by now been on site for so long we took another slump test and it failed so the entire load had to be dumped. THis then lead onto the next issue, because Barhale had cancelled two concrete deliveries and then dumped the third the concrete supplier couldn’t deliver another batch till the morning. THis meant that the small amount of concrete that had got in behind the shuttering would have been curing to long before the next batch arrived. This would have led to a cold joint forming, as a result bthe shuttering had to come down for a second time. The small amount of concrete removed and the ring beam reinforcement cleaned.
We are now in the position to pour the concrete again. The spraying of the C32/40 mix has been scrapped and they are using a skip with a tremi on it. This should result in the first quarter of the ring beam being poured within the next few hours. In reality it is about an 8th because either end of the ring beam reinforcement cage can not have concrete poured onto it., as it must be left open in order to tie in the next quater of the ring beam reinforcement cage.
Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog 