Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

The ‘wall’ is now complete…inspected, handed over, warranties issued and snag list complete.  The only outstanding issues I still have to deal with are working through the red-line drawings, chasing up failed submittals and rebutting some anticipated REAs.  A good sense of accomplishment, particularly having finished a month ahead of schedule so smiles all round.  Looking at it now, one could never imagine how much toil went into a relatively simple and small structure…but one that is key to saving life, and sustaining a major transport route through Pennsylvania.  I compare this (on a far smaller scale) to a similar feeling probably felt by engineers involved in the Dawlish SW train track repair – a mammoth task which at the end looked pretty undramatic, but was neverthless paramount to both safety and sustaining transportation routes, tourism, economy etc etc.

Excavation and shoring system – 2 months prior to completion

Inspection and hand-over

I have now switched the majority of my focus to the on-base warehouse project; I’ve been really impressed by the management, work ethos and professionalism of the contractor on this site – one of the advantages of the USACE posting is being able to observe and contrast management styles across different projects, but also to gain knowledge from a large pool of contractors.  My focus comes at a time of large internal slab-on-grade pours incorporating underfloor heating systems; the base has suffered in previous projects from concrete curling issues so I’ve spent a lot of time digging through codes, specs, technical reports, and working closely with the QC manager to ensure that the mix design, conditions, and handling eliminates this problem…so far so good on floor flatness tests.  Temps are due to drop down to 0degC next week; consequently we have been working through a cold weather plan to ensure everything continues on track – some of the research behind TMR1 has proven its worth!

The highlight of this week was the testing of rescue procedures of a man-down on the roof!  Clearly the on-barracks fire brigade were warned off, because the whole wild-west turned up on-site within 2 minutes.  Despite my muffled laughter of handle bar moustaches (this wasn’t Mo-vember!)and denim jackets, the serial proved valuable in testing the procedures…or lack of! Following a debrief, I essentially rewrote the entire actions-on procedure for the contractor who, to be fair, didn’t really have a starting block – for once, some practical non-engineering military knowledge brought to the fore.

I went to a very interesting seminar on valves used in the oil and gas industry for high severity operations.

It concentrated on compressor recycle lines and flow line choke valves.

The subject matter covered included material selection, how to control flow rate, pressure differential, corrosion and erosion resistance, analysis of modes of failure and of course developing technologies. They use DRAG technology, which is essentially using a tungsten carbide filter to surround the valve plug on a globe valve in liquid stream to protect the plug from damage, excessive pressure drops and to remove any chance of cavitation. A picture of one of the discs that together with lots of other discs stacked together form the filter. The flow being from outside to in.

Surprisingly, it was not delivered as a sales pitch despite coming from a private company. I think that they know what they produce speaks for itself. I for one learned a huge amount and will be applying some of the lessons learned to my projects. It will be a way of ticking the new technology competency.

Mark, if PEW doesn’t work out you should consider it…

The work site is in the bottom right corner

Noting that it’s been a while since i blogged. I intend to use a number of blogs to comment on what I’ve been doing, using this first one as a general comment on the project progress before highlighting specific engineering issues in the next couple.

This week has seen some significant milestones for the Abercrombie business school, allowing opportunity to reflect on a number of issues.

1. Main Structure Topping Out.

After many months of blood sweat and tears the final concrete pour for main structure of the Abercrombie Business school occurred last wednesday, with a topping out ceremony on Friday Morning, with guests and dignitaries from the university, John Holland and the Army of consultants and architects employed on the job. with a floor plan of 7000 square metres, 6 floors above ground and 3 basement floors and considering the partial deck collapse experienced earlier this year, as well as inclement weather and this has been no small achievement considering the first on ground slab was poured on 17th December last year. That having been said, the project is no running approximately 4-5 months behind schedule.

From a services perspective topping out is excellent news, Largely due to the fact attention and focus for resources will now switch fire to fit out, with access available to all floors expected in a week or so, following the full stress of the top deck and formwork stripping below.

2. HV Substation Structure Handover to Ausgrid (National Grid)

From a services perspective, achieving handover of the HV substation structure to Ausgrid to begin HV fit out has been a personal and services team victory. With superstructure of the business school running so far behind schedule a deal was struck between clients and John Holland team, that if the structure could be finished by the end of September all LDs could be waived. As a result all formwork and concreting resources had been focussed somewhat myopically on structure (and still not achieving the september deadline – LDs are now in negotiation)  , whereas the actual Critical path of the project ran through the substation ‘Power On’ date, in order to achieve commissioning timelines and meet the new extended deadline. Similarly getting the project team to understand that pushing the completion of internal elements of the structure such as Main switch rooms and comms rooms will ultimately cut large chunks of time out of the overall program, allowing staggered handover of comms rooms to the university for their own fit out teams to commission, significantly reducing the deadline to commissioning.

The Internals of the new business school HV substation prior to handover

Main LV switch room

 Main Comms room

3. Variety of project involvement.

While admittedly the bulk of activity has been focussed on structure, that does not mean to say that throughout the bowels of the building Services have not been busy. The scale of the Abercrombie business School project has meant that I have received what I feel is good exposure to a whole range of disciplines Including but not limited to coordinating all the Mechanical, Hydraulic, drainage, stormwater and sanitation, as well as heavy involvement in Electrical, including various H&S policies and Method statements. I have been running the services subcontractors meeting and assessing progress claims for sub contractors, as well as acting as the main services point of contact for construction related issues as well as services related QA and defecting. Fortunately for me, culturally, the project team here have been welcoming, as early on in the job a long serving but relatively junior services engineer left the job, allowing me to step into his role.By my calculation, with accommodation costs taken into account I represent a $150000 annual saving to the project on salary alone.

That having been said, as I’m sure Ben and Ollie have found, early negotiations with the project director over working hours, accommodation costs etc, had to be handled delicately as there is really no passage of information between JH head office and the projects as to what to expect from a PET student. The benefits to this is that following early frustrations you can carve out a direction for yourself. An early interest in BIM has meant hat I have ended up largely taking on delivery of a ‘BIM 360’ solution – BIM Models downloaded to Ipads to allow remote access on site, for defecting and as builting the BIM model, and last week I spent two days with our BIM consultant learning how to assemble the overall design model from the subcontractors designs, publish, clash detect and issue direction to the designers for completion of the 3D design, with a view to me taking on responsibilities for the completion of BIM Coordination for the last few turns of the handle. My line manager seems to be as focussed on my development as contributing to the project, and as a result has arranged for me to shadow the commercial team for a few days later in the month.

Now i have returned to the Blog, my next post will focus on some of the actual engineering issues that I have encountered however I will finish this one by just commenting on how Impressed I was at the breadth of disciplines encountered during phase 1 I have actually received exposure to so far, including the civil and project management aspects. A shortcoming would be Comms equipment and infrastructure, Understanding that in our world the technicalities of such systems will be handled by the Corps Signals, but with the volume of IT systems likely to be encountered a working knowledge of IT infrastructure may be of some use, at the expense of the depth of detail of others disciplines.