Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

Thames Tideway Tunnel – The start

I have now started on Phase 3 with Arup and am working within the geotechnical team on the Thames Tideway Tunnel project. To avoid this blog getting too long I’ll present some of the background, my part in the plan and a brief discussion on sustainability.

Background. The London sewer network is predominantly a combined foul and surface water system. The sewers convey the waste to treatment works for processing. However, when it rains heavily the capacity of the sewers is often overwhelmed and the excess sewage is deposited into the Thames through combined sewer outfalls. To reduce the frequency of incidents of raw sewage discharge into the Thames each year the Thames Tideway Tunnel project aims to capture combined storm and foul water within a new 7.2m diameter tunnel running from Acton in the west to Abbey Mills in the east.

Overview of tunnel alignment through the London geology.

My part in the plan. Effectively the project is divided into three sections: west, central and east. Each section has a number of connections to capture the existing combined sewer outfalls and convey the flow into the new sewer. The process is generally to have an interceptor chamber which feeds into a further set of chambers to attenuate flow and then a drop shaft to connect to the new sewer. I have 2 sites to design the foundations for: Putney and Barn Elms. Arup are not responsible for the main sewer tunnel or drop shafts but are responsible for designing the other elements, including the chamber and connecting culvert foundations.

View of Putney Foreshore Embankment site

Putney has some interesting challenges: The connection to the existing sewer outfall is directly below Putney bridge. One of the proposals sees there needing to be a number of bored piles in the foundation design (questionable reasons: either as tension piles to avoid buoyancy issues or to minimise long term settlement between existing bridge outfall and new structure). Getting a piling rig into position will be a challenge due to headroom constraints. One method sees a temporary sheet pile wall planned to be installed around the whole site area (under the centre of one of Putney bridge arches (max headroom)), then dewatered, excavated and re-filled. The temporary works are out of my scope but understanding how the contractor will carry out the works is clearly important.

Existing outfalls (left), proposed interception chamber on right – this is 7m deep with a number of bored piles within the foundations proposed!

My responsibility is designing the interception chamber (left green), connecting tunnel (centre purple) and attenuation chambers (right brown/green/blue) foundations. Drop shaft and connecting tunnel to main sewer (out of picture) is not my responsibility.

Illustrative view of completed site.

So in terms of what I am doing – initial work is scoping further ground investigation for where there is risk – lack of confidence in certain parameters for example. Next comes a geotechnical design report and then will come developed design, detailed design and finally construction issue information. This aligns pretty well with the RIBA stages of work too.

Sustainability.

The aim of the project is to provide overflow capacity to the existing sewer infrastructure in order to reduce the frequency of sewage discharges into the river Thames. 

Advantages and Disadvantages. This project will bring political and social benefits of a cleaner river and evidence of better waste management practices within the UK. The economic benefit is more questionable. Construction costs have multiplied by a factor of 3 from 2005 to £4bn raising the question of its cost worthiness. Moreover, other options of attempting to use land as attenuation (green field sites as soakaways, green roofs) through green infrastructure have been argued to be sufficient to meet the demands of future predicted storm levels. The legislation is in place to enforce greener infrastructure but it appears planning authorities do not follow this through as judicially as they might with greater resources.

The accuracy of the sewage over flow statistics has been questioned, with some groups stating that the level of pollution entering the Thames is lower than the Environmental Agency’s limits now and so the construction of the new sewer is a complete waste of money.

As part of the project, the Beckton Sewerage Treatment Works will also be upgraded to cope with additional demand. The disadvantage of increasing the amount of surface and foul water captured will be the need to pump all of the water through 60m of head at Abbey Mills which will result in higher maintenance costs and require significant energy to achieve. If some of the storm water had been captured through green infrastructure assets there would be less energy required to process it at the other end. Reducing the amount of storm water ever reaching the sewer therefore brings a double saving.

Clearly reducing the sewage discharge into the Thames is beneficial and the project will significantly improve the condition of the river. I suspect as a country likely to be at the forefront of developing environmentally friendly solutions the green infrastructure piece will come but for now at least a solution has been produced to an acceptable cost, timeframe and quality, assuming all goes to plan!

In summary. This project will be my sole focus. I have started to investigate wider strands within it – financial/commercial for a better background understanding but with a company like Arup, unless specifically requested, phase 3 will tend to be focussed on one major project.

Introduction

This blog aims to get a discussion going on the topic of utilising CAD packages in your design offices. I’ll kick-off with NDY’s set-up…

REVIT is seen, pretty much construction industry wide and certainly at NDY, as the flagship CAD package. We have a dedicated CAD team that solely use REVIT, although skills do exist for other CAD packages such as AutoCAD.

NDY promote their use of REVIT and like to express this to their client base so they are seen as operating with the latest industry technology. However, there is a problem. I’ll use my current section, Interiors, as an example of a typical project.

Problem

The Interiors Section of the Existing Buildings Department focuses on short-term projects, usually 6 – 8 wks. Therefore, turn-around times for CAD drawings, in particular, are tight. If the design is of specific technical complexity then usually REVIT will be: a) requested by the client and b) preferred by us as we can programme in the CAD requirements and resource through our dedicated CAD team. However, due to short project deliverable timelines and sometimes more basic CAD requirements along with client requests for only needing simple drawings, it can be a lot quicker if these are created ‘in-section’ (opposed to in-house) using AutoCAD. This negates the need to resource to the CAD team which they prefer as their bread and butter work, for the core departments working on large complex projects, can continue unhindered.

The AutoCAD capability exists in the Interiors Section so this affords us great flexibility in managing project deliverables and in-turn removes pressure from the wider office.

In addition, NDY also have an outsourcing capability in Indochina where we have a process in place that outsources CAD requirements. A great capability but for short-term work the lead-time required for the process to work efficiently means that we still prefer to do this in-section. It also means we can make amendments and re-issue drawings in the most efficient and effective manner.

As time is money you can see how this creates cost savings, especially when you compare the technical skills required between using basic AutoCAD and REVIT.

Discuss…

I’ll leave it there with the hope to spark a discussion about your experiences and thoughts…

Edited with Outsourcing CAD process.

Introduction

In this blog I will cover the lead up to transitioning between Phase 2 & 3. It aims to help out the Phase 1 students and hopefully give you a few pointers come your impending move – it rushes up faster than you think!

Background

You will be fully aware that Phase 2 in Australia is set-up with John Holland Group (JHG), so apart from sorting out your own admin for the move, work wise things should be plain sailing. However, you should also be aware that Phase 3 – Design Consultancy attachment is partly up to you to organise.

My Experience

The most important thing to factor in is time. Eight months flies by and you really need to give the move some thought early on, allowing sufficient lead-time to jump through a few hoops. My experience could be classed as atypical as I tried to break from what my predecessor did but for, at the time, what I thought were good reasons.

The norm is for the student to move to the office of whoever the design consultancy was for your JHG project. This has pros and cons:

Pros  

• You will have had some interaction with them at some point on your project and hopefully built-up a good rapport.
• You may be able to visit their office through working on an area of the project; a great way of meeting more employees but more importantly get a feel for the vibe of the office. I did this and it really helped with my decision.
• If the previous PET student went there then they will have a very good understanding of what the programme is all about and importantly how to manage you. I think this is invaluable and sealed the deal for me in the end. Although it’s not difficult to inform a new office of all that info, they may have a different agenda for you and by the time you work that out it might be too late.
• Equally, if the student you follow is a good egg then the office will understand your experience, capabilities (especially managerial) and general ‘can-do’ attitude.       This can also be tempered with them knowing your other commitments; academic studies etc.
• It also reduces the number of hoops and admin for JHG and the design office to do.
• I was told that for conflict of interest reasons that I would categorically not be working back on the JHG project. This is a positive thing as it gives you a clean break and doesn’t get you working on the same project tasks; potentially reducing your chances of gaining more breadth in usually much needed competency areas. It doesn’t however stop you from imparting your newly gained knowledge and experience to help out your design office colleagues; only being in the office for three days I managed to do this with one of my very first tasks as I have the understanding from being familiar with NDY documentation.
• Another related positive is your ability to see things from the other side of the fence and maybe understand why certain decisions were made without the JHG inflated spin.

Cons

• You may have had to deal with the design consultancy staff whilst wearing your Managing Contractor (MC) hat where you may have had to show bias to the MC in order to please your chain of command, only to then find yourself working alongside the design office staff or be a member in their team.
• There may be other design consultancies that have better projects on the go.
• A diminished office and demotivated atmosphere. They used to occupy the entire 11^th floor but have reduced in size due to reduction in work and so are looking to lease out the other half of the office. [I have to say that although they have condensed into a single side of the office the atmosphere and spirit seems good].

Decision

It may seem, from the pro – con balance, that it’s a no-brainer in following-on in your predecessor’s footsteps. But, there may be very good reasons for a change. For me NDY were having a rough ride at the hands of JHG’s management on the PCH project and there were a number of design challenges, which no amount of senior management meetings on the 18^th green were going to resolve; there could still be a court hearing come the end of the project. To that end and with repeated warnings (slurs) from JHG staff it seemed like a good idea to at least investigate alternative attachment opportunities.

I engaged with two other big consultancies in Perth, Wood & Grieve Engineers (WGE) and WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff. WGE had won the bid for the new Perth Stadium, which I thought looked like a great project but unfortunately they had been laying staff off and presentationally they said it wouldn’t look good taking on new blood. WSP was more of the services director at JHG trying to line me up with their office, but i just couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow it was mates doing each other a favour and so didn’t feel my best interests were at heart.

For both I did a fair amount of research, rewrote my CV, covering letters etc and even used known acquaintances on the inside to at least get an interview (hence the comment above about needing lead-time). After weeks of not really getting anywhere it was on the advice of another design consultancy, Cundall, whom I was working with on the PCH project who gave me the low-down on each prospective office and ultimately helped me make my decision to stick with the original plan and join NDY.

I suppose the important point here is to not just follow the norm because that’s what others before you did. Investigate for yourself and use as many sources at your disposal as possible to aid you in your decision. But remember this… it is you that’s going to be working at the office for the next 6 months and it’s your needs and requirements that must be met, which therefore should be your priority over everything else; remember the end-state is to become a Chartered Engineer.

I don’t know if any other Phase 3 students would like to echo my experience or add their own?

In Other News

I completed Ironman Western Australia at the weekend. A tough 6 month training programme, juggling work and study, resulting in a lot of blood (when I broke my thumb) and sweat, but thankfully no tears. I managed to get a PB in a total time of 12hrs 7mins (beating my previous best by 1hr 13mins) for the 3.8km swim, 180km bike and 42.2 km run.

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The weather caused mixed emotions with high morning wind and rain creating 1 – 2 metre swell, causing somewhere near 100 participants to jack-it-in through vomiting and general panic during the sea swim to sections on the bike course cycling into a 50km/h head wind. Thankfully though the cloud cover and low 21°C temperature meant a cool bike and run. With 1205 competitors starting, coming home in a divisional ranking of 91^st (based on age category) and 519^th overall, I was broadly happy. As a comparison the winner, a pro-athlete completed the course in 7hrs 55mins, an Australian course record – phenomenal!

At least now I can have my life back, lie-in at the weekends, not feel guilty about missing a training session and drink alcohol…until next time; which won’t be anytime soon, well not for the long course anyway!

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Sea swim around the iconic Busselton Jetty – you can just make out the turn point in the distance.

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Glad to be out of the washing machine.

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90km down – another 90km to go!

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Only a marathon to finish off.

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Done!

No, I don’t mean I have just bought a shocking pink brad-esque jumper, I am in fact currently wading my way through NA to BS EN 1991-2:2003 in an attempt to calculate the load on a concrete slab that crosses a high pressure gas main to protect it from quarry vehicles.

It’s like calculation bridge loading, only on crack, and redbull, when you’re already as hyper as that bloke who taught us about drawings…

It you’re dealing with “abnormal” vehicle loading, eg. vehicles that aren’t allowed to drive on a road, you have to consider Load Case 3 as described in the EC.  Due to the size of the vehicles I am dealing with the NA says I must use SV100 vehicle loading (see below).

My question is, will this always be the most onerous case, in which case do I bother with LC1 or 2 or can I just do LC3 and call it a fish?

Answers on a postcard please…

BPGC, woof.

The Civils who’ve just completed the living hell that is Cofferdam will be reciting ‘boundaries, properties, groundwater and contamination’ in cold sweats at ungodly hours.  This blog will look at how groundwater has unsuspectedly given life to what was assessed to be the biggest risk on my project – the rate of tunnelling.

JHG bid on the AMSP (Amaroo Main Sewer Project) expecting groundwater inflow levels to be in the region of those described in the GDR, or not a million miles off anyway.  The GDR is the designer’s interpretation of the factual data gathered from the site investigation, considered relevant to constructing the asset i.e. a 7.8km long sewer system above and below the water table at depths of up to 22m.

JHG risk register

JHG assessed the rate of tunnelling to be the biggest risk of the project with a risk value of $2,660,000 ($10,640,000.00 impact x 25% likelihood).  The thought process was that the risk lay in tunnelling through fine grained material (clay) with floaters (basalt boulders) in the northern end of the project alignment.  There was no mention of water (impacting tunnelling rate) which has a risk value of $150,000 ($300,000.00 impact x 50% likelihood), just 1/17^th of the rate of tunnelling risk.   It was soon clear during shaft excavation that groundwater inflows were far in excess of those anticipated based on the information in the GDR, and the shaft excavation (and hence TBM) programme had to be amended to keep water inflows at manageable levels.

JHG engaged a specialist subcontractor to conduct a groundwater investigation regime in an effort to determine just how much water they would encounter, and to transfer the cost risk of groundwater management to the Client by proving a compensation event.  In order to do this, JHG needs to show a material difference between the designer’s groundwater inflow estimates and the engaged subcontractor’s estimates.  The Client then needs to accept that the level of groundwater as an unforeseen ground circumstance (Latent condition in Aussie lingo).  Both the designer and the engaged subcontractors’ reports stated their estimates could be under or overestimated by an order of magnitude.   Convenient considering their estimates differ by about just that.

How did we find ourselves in this mess?

Tight market conditions may have persuaded JHG to bid on a project that other tier 1 contractors shied away from due to their interpretation of the risks associated with groundwater management.  It may be that it was not possible to price all the risk into the bid if JHG was to be a serious contender, and that JHG was willing to accept the risk on a construct-only contract.  It may also be that JHG assumed a Trade Waste Agreement (TWA) would allow 4ML to be disposed of into an existing sewer at the southern end of the alignment at no charge (the TWA limit is in fact 1.2ML).  It could be that the risk register was just a revamped version of the one used by the same project team on a recent tunnelling job of similar scope in Queensland where water was not an issue.  Or it may just be that JHG accepted the GDR as gospel truth and rolled the dice hoping they could save on doing an independent investigation.  In any case, the risk now requires urgent management.

Back to the site investigation

It was known at the tender stage that the ground varies from fresh to extremely weathered basalt and residual soils.  In contrast to homogenous soils where permeability can be estimated through laboratory testing, groundwater in rock masses flows through fractures and joint sets.  Estimating permeability in a rock mass is impossible without in-situ testing.  One could argue that a tier 1 company such as JHG should have had geotechnical engineers sufficiently competent to know that, and insisted on conducting an independent SI to make better informed decisions when compiling the R&O register.  I suspect the cost of doing so would have prevented this if it had happened.  Hindsight is 20/20 vision.

Walk-over survey

You will remember that a site investigation is comprised of a desktop study, ground investigation and site walk-over.  JHG spent $293,536.04 on the specialist subcontractor.  This may well have been reduced (or eliminated) if JHG had done a little research of their own for less than the price of a NAAFI watch.  A google map study screams water to the north of the project alignment (Springs Road, Donny “Brook”, the presence of numerous farm dams) (Figure 1).  A drive around the local area also gave a clue (Donnybrook Mineral Springs road sign) (Figure 2).  The similarity of this situation to Rich Phillips’ project in Southampton is uncanny – time spent in Recce…

Figure 1.  Google map study of the northern part of the alignment.

Figure 2.  Road signs at the junction circled in Figure 1.

Conclusion

There could be a number of reasons why JHG accepted the risk of groundwater.  A walk-over survey would have alerted them to the fact that the risk impact ($$$) was likely to be insufficient, and probability was more like 100%.  The interesting part is that the TBMs cannot proceed without shafts, and shafts cannot proceed without a water management plan.  To those who are soon to go onto Phase 2, line items in a risk assessment should not be assumed as existing in isolation.  In this case, I like to think of it as the Jack Russell (groundwater) has woken up the Rottweiler (tunnelling rate) and they are about to bite someone on the………….ankle.

PS  If anyone wants info on Melbourne, my e-mail address is daryn.mullen@gmail.com.  Happy to answer any questions to do with nice areas to live in or bogan areas to avoid etc.

Initial task

As mentioned last week I’m currently being asked to look at two projects, a Biopharm for GlaxoSmith Kline (GSK) and the re-fit of some steam plant at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. I get the impression that Bryden Wood were hoping to initially fill my time with the steam plant project, however, I won’t be able to get involved with this until Wed at the earliest. Therefore I’m having a bit of a slow start, which is no bad thing after the last few months on site. My task to date has been to look at possible diffuser solutions (air supply) in a number of rooms in the Biopharm facility, which will ultimately feed into the specification for the main contractor. I’ll start with a few paragraphs stolen from the GSK website:

Firstly what are Biopharmaceuticals?

Biopharmaceutical products are medicines engineered by scientists and manufactured by living organisms to treat specific ailments. Biopharmaceuticals often target specific cellular functions and tend to be more potent than chemically synthesised pharmaceuticals. Today, 16% of all pharmaceuticals are biologic in nature – treating a wide range of disease areas.

What does Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing involve?

All biopharmaceuticals are manufactured in the same way. Closed, controlled reactors cultivate cells or organisms to produce large quantities of the medicinal product. During cultivation, the reactors are fed with nutrients and its temperature, pH, and aeration are controlled.

Once enough of the product has been produced, the reactor contents are harvested.

Further processing isolates, purifies, and stabilizes the bulk product. It is frozen and stored until formulation and dispensing into its final dosage form used by our patients.

To keep production free from unintended contamination by naturally occurring microbes, manufacture is mostly executed in closed, clean, and sterile equipment. Cleanroom facilities and personnel gowning (similar to hospital operating theatres) provide additional assurance of product quality.

GMP classifications in terms of allowable particle numbers and size per metre cubed. See paragraph below.

What impact does this have on MEP?

It is this final paragraph leads to a requirement for varying levels of cleanliness in rooms depending on their use. The specification for cleanliness is via a standard called Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP).

The rooms I am looking at require a GMP classification of either C or D. This is achieved by increasing the number of air changes per hour (ACH) to a minimum of 10 for class D rooms and 20 for class C rooms. Additionally specific bag filters are use in the Air Handling Units (AHUs) and HEPA filters inserted into the system (see Fran’s blog on ductwork testing).

What’s the problem / why have I got involved?

The strategy for meeting the ventilation requirements in the class D rooms is for high level supply and extract. Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be enough ceiling space to achieve this; the reactors that cultivate cells are fed by pipework from above, in addition the ceiling is up to 5m high in places and the lighting is being supplied with LEDs, which leads to large emitter arrays being required. The knock on of this is that there is little space for both supply diffusers and extract grilles in the ceiling. We are therefore looking to provide high level supply and low level extract.

My task has been firstly to look at what diffuser options meet our requirement. I approached this in the following manner:

• Identify what the air velocity requirements are for the clean rooms – .15 m/s to .45 m/s for class D rooms. (CIBSE guide B)
• Use the ACH values and room volumes to work out what the required room air flow rates were. The assumption was made that the GMP requirement would be in excess of the heating / cooling requirement.
• Use manufacturer’s data sheets to narrow down the number of products that meet our requirement (figure 1 and 2). The main driver for this was the “throw”. Where throw is the distance from a diffuser to where the velocity of the air jet drops to 0.5 m/s. The throw that is achievable for a given diffuser will predominantly depend on its design, its use (heating, cooling or ventilation) and the flow rate of air through it. Most manufacturer’s don’t give a distance for “throw” in their data sheets, but do give a distance to the 0.2 m/s isovel (line of constant velocity), which is actually more use in my circumstance.
• A secondary consideration was ensuring that the noise rating of the diffuser was acceptable along with the pressure drop across the diffuser.

This has allowed me to scope a couple of potential solutions. I am now in the process of approaching suppliers to confirm the type of diffuser and suggested layouts. We’ll then be able to put this back into our model to see how it impacts other services and eventually write it into the specification.

Figure 1. This figure is taken from a manufacturer’s guide and shows both the vertical and horizontal at a distance where the jet velocity has dropped to .2 m/s. The darker blue cloud indicates how the air jet would move when the diffuser is set up for isothermal or cooling conditions and the coanda effect is being utilised. The lighter colour bubbles indicate the blades in the diffuser being at a steeper angle to force warm air down into the occupied space. My room is 5m high and has 3m between diffusers, therefore ALv is 5m and ALh is 6.5m (the occupied zone is to the floor as the requirement is for cleanliness as opposed to the 1.8m indicated above for someone standing).

Figure 2. From figure 1 it is possible to calculate ALv and ALh. In my case ALv is 5m. I’ve used this with a blade angle of 45 degrees and a heating delta t of 5 degrees to calculate that one AX6 250 diffuser would need to be pushing through just over 1000 m cubed per hour to meet these conditions. This is then checked against the capability of the diffuser to see if it works, if it doesn’t either the blade angle can be changed or another diffuser has to be selected.

The next stage is to try and work out the low level return will work; part of the design brief is that GSK want the facility to conjure images of “ the Google of Pharmaceuticals” and for the process to be transparent. This is resulting in most of the internal walls being glass – not entirely sure how we’re going to turn glass walls into return plenum’s.

So after a nice period of leave (Iceland is a great holiday destination!) I am now in a design office.

I’ve been given two projects to get me started: designing a crossing point for quarry vehicles to get over a high pressure gas pipeline, and designing a drainage solution to a flooded National Grid site.  Additionally I’m also getting pulled into a job designing a new facility for the Somalian SF next to Mogadishu airport, not too dissimilar to one I did for our SF in Lash just before it shut.  So plenty to get stuck into.

Both of these jobs were sold to me as “nice simple ones to get started with”.  Which it turns out is not true for either.  The drainage job requires applying for a Section 50 licence to dig up a road and a discharge consent from the environment agency.  The design itself is pretty straight forward but the hoops you need to just through are not.

The pipeline crossings job is more of a design headache as what I was told was gravel is in fact clay.  Despite three different surveys being conducted, at no point did anyone do an SPT, or lab testing and so no Geo properties, ground water data or test results are available.  So the first step is to get a “proper” site investigation done.

Additionally the company I am attached to (WYG – a fairly holistic medium sixed engineering consultancy) do the obvious structural, civil, mechanical and electrical design work, but they also do planning, transport, force protection, international development and aid work to name a few.  So the plan seems to be for me to do about four months in the Civils/Structural design dept. (overuse of the work dept. – there are three of us in the London office) then a month in any three other depts. of my choice.  I’m thinking International development, Project Management and Adjudication, but I’d be happy to get suggestions!

On Friday I handed in my PPE, laptop and called time on my secondment with Carillion at Battersea Power Station Phase One. If I’m honest this brought about mixed emotions. If you’d asked me two months ago how I thought I’d feel, I’m confident the answer would have been, “elated.” At the time I was at a bit of a low point on the project and constantly frustrated with not being able to progress works in the manner I’d like. However, over the last couple of months things have improved and there’s been visible progress in the basement, which now means that I’m almost a bit sad to be leaving.

During my time at Battersea the building has moved from a structure that was only a few levels tall in most places, to one that is topped out bar two cores. In my opinion it now looks pretty dominating if you travel into Victoria on the train or walk west along the river from Waterloo. The structure moving up has allowed the basement to open up – back propping has been removed and water ingress issues have been mitigated (to an extent) which have removed many of the frictions of trying to work in the basement.

When I arrived on site MEP activity in the basement was revolved around the installation of pipework and containment. I thought I’d be involved in the installation of an energy centre and variations to external works; however, neither of these activities has started yet. As I left site I was working in 6 of 9 thermal plant rooms, 62 of 89 modules containing 300mm dia pipework had been installed, and 4 of 12 TX rooms were in progress. I’d hoped to see the filling and flushing of core A (programme date Aug, revised date Oct), but this was still someway off when I left.

I believe my attachment has been as success, having gathered experience in competencies A1, C1, C2, D1, D2, D3 and E2, E3. Awaiting confirmation from AER3 my focus for phase 3 will now be on A2, B1,B2,B3, and E4.

Is there anything I wish I’d done differently? Not hugely. I believe I’ve got the best out of what was available at Battersea. In an ideal world my attachment would have started and ended 3 months later which would have opened up more interesting MEP work. In addition I would have benefited from there being more Carillion mangers working in the basement area – part of the reason that things picked up in the last few months was that the structures team put an additional project manager in the basement to progress their works. Perhaps I should have seen this as an opportunity earlier on, but I didn’t see it within my remit and would have probably been getting out of my lane trying to manage the detail of ground workers, sheet pile and concrete subcontractors. I’ve also not touched on the tender process whilst at Battersea as the MEP side of the job has been beyond this. On reflection this could have been overcome by working on another Carillion job for a day week or a short period (something my boss suggested during my wash up interview). Although I’m not sure this would have worked in reality due to the pace of life at Battersea – probably why it was suggested during my final interview if I’m being cynical. Something for phase 1’s to bear in mind though as they head out on phase 2.

Would I do this job outside the Army? Probably not, although, I will bear in mind the fact that everyone has re-iterated to me, “Battersea is not like any job they’ve worked on before”. That being said the people have been great to work with, the atmosphere is similar to that in a Troop / Squadron and at the moment the money is good; I am not being replaced at Battersea, which is due to the fact Carillion’s prelims are tight and the people who’ve recently been interviewed to join the MEP team are asking for circa £85k plus package. Carillion will try and bridge the gap until someone else from the RSME arrives, however, I imagine at some point something will give and Carillion will decide to pay something close to the market rate to get someone else on board the team.

I’m now working at Bryden Wood Group for phase 3 within the Mechanical team. There are currently two projects I will be involved in. The first is a Biopharm in Ulverston (making Pharmaceuticals that are biological in nature), which will be the first of its kind for GlaxoSmithKline in the UK . This project is in the concept stage and valued somewhere between £100 to £150M. The second is steam plant at a London University which is only valued at £50K from a MEP design perspective, so hopefully lots of scope for me to get a lot of autonomy.

Installation of Raceway modules progressing well. The four pipes on the left hand side at high level are CHW and LTHW F&R. These came to site on modules like the one that can be seen on the ground. Then there is more LTHW & CHW pipework which was installed loose, gas and public health.

The view £15M will buy you. Looking out over London from the penthouse in core A. To the left of the picture is the main railway line into Victoria so a double bonus if the owner happens to be a train enthusiast.

Introduction

As you may have guessed, my ‘site phase’ of the course is actually based in an office many miles from any site. Last week I finally got offshore and I was able to assist with the survey of the helideck in readiness for the lighting upgrade project due in feb, assist with the lifeboat survey in readiness for the padeye replacement project in May and ‘get all over’ the 4^th and 5^th PWRI flowline projects. Below are a few of my thoughts;

Movement and Arrival

Heli is the only way to get to the platform and takes about an hour. I have had to do 3 courses and a medical (including drugs test – I passed) to get this far and familiarisation videos and site inductions are required on arrival, which takes up the rest of the day. Lesson learnt – Don’t assume when crew are mobilised that they are going to achieve anything on the first day. Factor in at least a day or even two before any work can commence.

Understanding of the job

Getting out on site allowed me to fully understand the scope of each project rather than relying on drawings and pictures. Of course this is obvious, but you will be surprised when the last time any of the SPAs actually went offshore. One of the JREs I’m working with has never deployed. This is sometimes obvious in meetings when issues are raised. They will know about the problem and what they have been told, but sometimes don’t understand what that means or asks the ‘so what’ question. Lesson learnt – Mobilise during the design phase to fully understand the scope and also mobilise during construction so you can get hands on. Sam – I will arrange a visit as soon as I can after your arrival (once you’ve done the required courses).

SafeCal

Due to the Life Extension Project I mentioned in the last blog, there are more people required offshore than they have beds for, so there is a need to use Safe Caledonia, a floating hotel. See pic below. This is tethered to the sea bed and connects to the platform via a moving bridge. The platform doesn’t move (much), but the SafeCal does as it floats. This week the movement was so much that the bridge had to be lifted, stranding quite a few on the platform. Lesson learnt – There are many things which can cause delays to a project, this is just one of them.

SafeCal – Flotel. Note the bridge connected to the platform.

Heights

This is not a place to be if you are uncomfortable with heights

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Level 1 looking down

Barriers, Barriers, Barriers

Very hot topic at the moment. As it happed I had two issues with barriers. I was working around the well bay minding my own business. When I went to leave, I came across a barrier that had been erected whilst I was working. I went to find an alternative route but couldn’t because of existing barriers all around; so I was barrier’d in. The second issue was when I went back to the same area 2 hours later, the barrier was still in place even though it was obvious that the reason for the barrier in the first place was now redundant, but meant I couldn’t get into the working area. Pic below – bit of a concern when you don’t know you’re in a working area! Lesson Learnt – Barrier control need work. I completed a couple of BOSS cards. (Behavioural Observation Safety System – used as a method for reporting incidences and encourages discussion at the point of issue)

Something just doesn’t feel right

Weather

A platform is very exposed and a combination of wind and rain can make life very unpleasant and stop work altogether if conditions exceed limits. As well as affecting the work on site directly it can also affect the delivery of material from boats, therefore indirectly affecting work on site. Lessons Learnt – Factor in Non Productive Time and make realistic. NPT of up to 45% is sometimes expected.

One of the better days. Carrying out recce on helideck.

SIMOPS

The platform is very busy at the moment, as noted by all the barriers!) There is a high risk of delays due to SIMOPS and needs to be managed properly. Even within a single project we had issues. Our original schedule showed electrical work happening at the same time as piping work which involved breaking containment. This was not allowed due to the risk of spark from the elec scope and the potential release of hydrocarbon from the piping work. Lesson learnt – Ensure no SIMOPS clash or deconflict and scrutinise schedules for internal clash.

PWRI Flowline

Below are a few pics to put the flowline in perspective. In an attempt to keep word count in this blog down, see if you can ID where on the schematic the pics refer to. Questions are more than welcome. (subtle differences may be noticed between pics and schematic – ignore)

Schematic showing 5th PWRI Flowline

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