Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

It has been a few weeks since my last post and lot of has happened since. The bridge deck has been poured on the 22nd on possible the worst day. No rain, still, but it was well over 30deg and the wind was right on the limit for operating a boom pump. The wind on the deck which is 9m high gave us curing issues as the surface started to dry and crack very quickly. As part of the pour plan I had worked out roughly what the rate of evaporation would be in accordance with the spec and with the wind gusting over 60km/h we had to constantly apply alcohol in a fine spray as soon as a portion of deck had been screeded. A bit of woeful mismanagement by the supervisor meant that we didn’t have hessian, plastic sheeting and the water hose ready to start curing the deck as soon as we should have and by the time we got it all covered there was a lot of cracking on the initially poured section. We have moved swiftly since as we stripped the scaffold on both sides over the next few days so we could start the backfill to the first Abutment RW levels. As a result we havn’t been up on the deck for the last couple of weeks so I have yet to see how bad the crazy paving effect may be. We backfilled both sides by 1.35m and poured the four base slabs for the first RW’s swiftly followed by the stem walls the week after and this week we have started the next stage of backfill for the next RW which will take us  under 2m below the top of deck. I should have insisted on wet curing for the lower RW’s as all four bases had a fair amount of surface cracking on yet another windy day which means I didn’t learn my lesson the first time but more truthfully means I just couldn’t give the pour the required time or more accurately the planning time it required relying more on the subcontractor to do the right thing. I have found this has been the case on a number of occasions, when I was purely a site engineer at the start of the attchment I had the time to comprehensively plan a concrete pour and direct it but with multiple sites and a crippling amount of paperwork to produce I have to rely more on the supervisor and the subcontractor. It has often reminded me of what Richard and John would say regarding knowledge of those you work with and to never assume they know what they are doing. I have frequently been surprised at how little knowledge of concrete the FRP company demonstrates who now frequently ask me what or how they should do something which 7 months ago would have been laughable. My supervisor is similar but tends to know what he should do but hasn’t a clue why – I felt exactly the same in JM lectures except I didn’t even know what I should do!

  Abutment A wingwall shutters

  Deck pour

  Retaining Wall bases 1B & 4B

        Backfill to next RW’s on abutment A

The aim is to open the bridge before xmas which is achievable as per the programme rewrite the other month but means I have practically zero tolerance for inclement weather or unforeseen problems. Having really pushed the subcontractor over the past few weeks we are a few days ahead in the programme but the critical piece will be the next backfill stage this week. We have a public holiday coming up which means no trades on site this weekend or mon, tue next week so we need to finish the next stage by this fri. This has already been compromised as the general superintendent ordered all machines to stop and knock off for the day over concerns of the dust levels which has meant we have lost a half day. The rail systems continue to be installed and all track has now been laid. The earthworks on the northern approach are now complete and the southern approach is probably only a week away from getting up to level. All this activity has meant it has been very difficult to build a bridge, it is almost likely other teams view the bridge as a hindrance and not the actual reason they are working in the area in the first place. The earthworks team seem to think they are special – which they are but not in the way they think! We did have a crossing point for plant over the tracks which got ripped out yesterday without any communication whatsoever which means to get from one abutment to another we now have to drive round onto the public road over Eastwood bridge and through the opposite gate which is a slight embuggerance. The sooner we get the backfill up to level and are able to traffic the bridge the better.

I still have responsibility for the eight other bridges along the alignment but as I have no more resources this has been mainly confined to administrative work regarding NCR’s and RFI’s. We have completed the substation work with the exception of two LV pits along an access road. Conduit issues still continue although the issues at Scalabrini and Kemps Creek have been resolved. I managed to cut the conduits cleanly enough for the HV cables to be pulled through today. The problem had been the limited space (40-70mm gap) to get any cutting equipment as deep as 700mm to cut the lower conduits. In the end we encased the conduits in mortar and got a concrete cutting subcontractor to come in to wire saw flush to each walkway slab face. This was fine for one side but when trying to cut the other side only 70mm away the wire saw tended to find its way back to the original cut so we ended up using 50mm core drill to stitch cut the other side which made a little messier but we were able to tidy up any buring and sharp edges to the clients satisfaction. Cowpasture Rd viaduct has now experienced the same issue as when an attempt to pull the cables through was made an obstruction was found. CCTV cameras showed some form of blockage so we a subcontractor has been employed to break out the conduits in the walkway to investigate. Having done this with the top conduits we haven’t found any blockage so far – could be a waste of money!

 Cowpasture Rd viaduct Combined Services Route (CSR) walkway

Having spoken with John Reddie last week and again today I think we are close to finally confirming my design attachment with SMEC. SMEC have designed all the bridge structures on this project and I am hopefully heading to the bridge design team but SKM is a back up company which could be an option.

In other news, our little man managed to take 3 unaided steps last week which I managed to witness having come back from work an hour earlier than normal. He has done bugger all since so I don’t think he is in a rush to walk and quite frankly he can take his time as its hard enough keeping track of him in quadrupedal mode. My wife organised a group 1 year old birthday party for her baby group at the weekend on the park at Coogee beach which was great fun with about 60 people turning up unfortunately I had to take Ethan and myself home early after he projectile vomited over me 3 times for good measure – it was not a good look! Also finally got caught speeding the other week having missed my usual turning on the motorway (half asleep) I failed to see a cop car parked behind a forest as you do who clocked me at 90km/h in a 70km/h in the middle of nowhere on a straight road. He took pity on me fortunately as I explained I was a tourist in an unfamiliar area which took the fine down from $450 to $250 which is still scandalous, he looked genuinely disappointed when he realised I had a UK license and so he wouldn’t be able to award me any points. Having been here for 7 months and only just been caught speeding considering that is the only offence the NSW police enforce is not too bad but maybe they should focus on reducing the amount of shootings that go on here.