Bridge Progress Photos 7 April 2014

First of all, the flowers of the Bambangan tree seems on their way to become fruits.

Left bank, the preparation of the rebars for the prestress beam

And preparing the formworks for the left bank pile caps

Right bank, earthworks and clearing to provide space for the retaining wall

Fabrication of Prestressed Concrete Beam near the site 16 to 20th March 2014

The road reserve site infront of Mr Majawin's house was levelled with road quality crusher run and used as the fabrication site of the 30 m long prestressed concrete beam for the new bridge.
The bottom width is 660mm forming the lower flange, while the top is 410 mm.  Forgot to note down the thickness of web.
The overall depth of beam is about 2 m, while the designed weight is 45.4 tons using grade 50Mpa concrete. There are three strands of steel prestressing tendons of 15.2mm diam to be placed at the lower half. More photos will be taken once these are placed into the beams.
For the time being the workers are only preparing the forms and the rebars on site as per below.

2 pics above taken on 16 March 2014

These two above taken on 20th March 2014

STAGING and Construction Area for the Post Stressed One span Concrete Beam

The bore piling machines and cranes have long been demobilsed from site, athough the supervisor told me they will come back when the old bridge is removed and a new one constructed.

So JKR then reclaimed with clay and topped with road quality crusher runs the approach to the bridge as staging area for the concrete beam.
On 6th March 2014, they have started preparing the form-work support as shown in the photo below:-

Then they discovered that the foreground part as shown above is too low, not level, so they removed all these timber, filled the area with more crusher run and repeat the construction of the timber base for the concrete beam formwork.

Photos taken as on 13th March are as below:

So this was reconstructed.
Well I got this info from the workers themselves.

And at the same time the Majawin Bambangan tree is also very sad that her root area have been taken over and soon she will have to be chopped down.  So she protested by giving out the most beautiful red flowers for fruits. Although I am very much doubtful if the flowers will eventually produced fruits due to the very dry season for the last 4 weeks and even if it rains, the moisture no cannot reach the roots of the tree any more due to the impervious clay layer.

This type of tree needs to grow at least 15 years before it can bear fruits..Now all of us have to say goodbye to the ole Bambangan tree of which the fruits can be turned to pickled fruits or eaten like a mango if the species is the sweet type.

CLOSE up of the fruit flowers


Meanwhile, the workers prepare the top of the giant bored pile for preparation of pile cap for the bridge.

Bridge Progress Sunday 16 Feb 2014 - GOODBYE TO BAMBANGAN TREE

The contractors crew were also working on Sundays. When I asked them why, they said that the fine weather in the morning must be taken advantage to carry out the earth filling and compaction which was done in layers as per standard engineering procedures.

True enough by 2:30 pm it started drizzling and continued to light rain until midnight.

However much work was done in the morning filling the road area approaching the bridge at the left side which will initially be used as staging area for the fabrication of the steel beams for the bridge.

JKR has also widened the road reserve for highway by acquiring about 3 m width into the land lots near the bridge as shown in the photos. In doing so a majestic bambangan tree has to be cut down.

Two views of the Bambangan Tree belonging to the Majawin Family ( light blue house behind)  that will have to be cut down. Even if it is left at the edge of the road, it will still die because the roots have been filled with that red clay earth on top which drowns the root system.

Additional land acquired from the existing house lots as can be seen by the new location of fence wall from the old one. Land owners along this highway again have to sacrifice a slice of their land for the sake of the highway.

Earth filling works... good and dry working area in the morning on Sunday.

 

All works on the bored piles were completed as of this date

 

 

The staging area for the fabrication of the steel beams for the bridge.

 

PROGRESS as on 28 Jan 2014 just before their 1 Week CNY Break

Hi folks, 
Have been slack in updating the progress of our new bridge.
As on this date, the bored piles on the left bank are completed which is 3 nos of 1000mm diam and another 3 nos of 600 mm diam next to the river bank.
LEFT BANK PICS:

Round concrete spacer

 



Completed 1000mm Bored piles

 

 



Completed 600mm diam bored piles

 

 

 

RIGHT BANK:

 





Mobilised to the right bank of the river to commence the bored pile works

Some welding works on the steel pipe casing

 

Concreting of another 1000mm diam bored pile

 

 

 

 

Concreting with tremie pipe 

 

 

The weather has improved from this date, the sun was out and very hot but the ground is still wet and soggy.

A BIGGER FLOOD TODAY

 

From these photos, seems that the project site has sufferred its highest flood level from the river.

Of course this Moyog river has given hundreds of higher floods but what I meant is the flood level since the contractor possessed the site for the new bridge.

From another view:

 

And a resident suffers ...

So much inconvenience for residents.  Also to update in year 2020, the district has 20 floods, almost one flood per month bringing in diseases such as meliediosis and lepstospirosis. This is due to the failure of all the goverment with no political will,  and the departments such as Environmental protection to stop illegal hill cutting in the Moyog catchment.  Updated 14 feb 2021

LOAD TESTING OF FIRST WORKING PILE STARTED ON TUE 7 JAN 2014

Hello folks,

After many weeks of preparation, the construction company finally commenced loading the 1 m diam working piles as per the standard pile test procedures, on 7th Jan 2014. I believed the maximum load would be 500 tons, twice its working load, but normally the load will be applied slowly, such as 200 tons on the first day and the deflections are recorded for 24 hours.

Two technicians have to be there day and night for 4 days.

These photos are self explanatory to all engineers I bet.

This is the pressure testing equipment setup. In the red is the hydraulic pressure pump, the pressure gauges on the blue inverted pail that connects to the load piston plunger (on top of the concrete pile).  4 dial gauges at each corner are used to monitor the downward deflections.

 

Close up of the loading plunger, with maximum capacity of 1000 tons but only half of that capacity would be used.

 

 

The two technicians who has the unenviable task of monitoring the testing for 4 days and night.  They got a good stocks of food and drinks though,  he he he..  Cheer up boys  !!

 

 

This is an update:

 

As on Friday 10 January 2014, I dropped by to have a looked and was told that the design working load for the 1 m diam bored pile is 225 tons and the maximum test load was 450 tons, which produced a maximum downward deflection of 4.1 mm only, and when the load was released after 4 days of testing, the residual deflection was only 2 mm.

 

I think the pile passed the load test with flying colours as expected anyway.

It is the same boring boring test for GTS testing lab who has done probably hundreds of this kind of test. Meanwhile the logo BGE means Borneo Geotechnical Engineering company.