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Removal of 75-year old bridge could take seven years.
The demolition of the eastern portion of the Bay Bridge has something in common with the new span that is replacing it — the project will take longer than originally estimated.
It will cost $244 million and take between five and seven years to remove the 75-year-old span of the Bay Bridge that connects Yerba Buena Island to Oakland, according to new projections.
The original two-year timeline for the demolition was a very preliminary projection, according to Bart Ney, spokesman for Caltrans. The complexity of the plan — notably dismantling the cantilever segment — calls for a time-consuming project.
“It’s basically like taking down a two-mile-long, three-story steel building,” Ney said.
Because the structure of the existing eastern span contains several hazardous materials, notably 75 years of lead paint, the demolished segments cannot just rest on the Bay floor.
It is now expected that demolition will need three phases, with the first part starting in late 2013, when the cantilever superstructure of the eastern span is removed. A contract for that removal will go out to bid this spring and is expected to be approved by summer, so demolition of the cantilever segment can begin “within days” of the new eastern span’s opening date in late 2013, said John Goodwin, spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the agency that manages the Bay Bridge.
Read more here.
‘Float out’ planned for Memorial Bridge lift span: Demolition milestone coming up
The first major event associated with the demolition of the Memorial Bridge is scheduled to take place during the evening hours of Monday, February 6.
Weather permitting and barge setup, the removal and “float out” of the lift span of the nearly 90-year old lift bridge that crosses the Piscataqua River between Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Kittery, Maine is expected to take place between 8 p.m. and midnight on February 6.
The operation, as high tide approaches at around 10:34 p.m., will involve the use of a barge upon which the estimated two million pound truss lift span will rest after it is disconnected from cables that support it.
The barge will then be floated out of the channel, secured near the New Hampshire shoreline, and then floated down the Piscataqua River early Wednesday morning.
Read more here.
Concrete wall falls on demolition worker.
A 42-year old man has become the latest demolition worker to be killed in what must surely rank as one of the most tragic starts to a new year in the industry’s history.
The accident happened yesterday morning at 8 am local time but it took several hours for emergency services to make the site sufficiently safe to recover the man’s body.
This latest incident follows hot on the heels of a spate of site deaths in the US.
Read more (in Dutch) here.
Latest Brazilian blast all set for Sunday morning.
World explosive demolition contractor of the year Fabio Bruno is currently hard at work placing explosives at the Pavuna bus station in Rio de Janeiro in advance of his latest major blast which is scheduled to take place at 08.00 am local time on Sunday.
The blast – part of the country’s build up to its hosting of the 2016 Olympic Games – will demolish the station, a neighbouring commercial building, and a seven-storey building that has never been occupied. Together, Fabio reports, the total volume of the buildings to be blasted is in the region of 15,500 cubic metres.
Based on past experience, we will be watching the news wires on Sunday morning an anticipation of what promises to be another big blast.
Contractor hits delays as stadium roof proves more resilient than anticipated.
The Civic Arena isn’t going down without a fight. Crews will try again today to bring down the second of eight roof leaves as part of the demolition of the 51-year-old building.
While the first panel came down without incident last weekend, the second one has proven to be much more stubborn, resisting attempts by contractor Noralco Corp. to remove it.
Workers snapped cables Tuesday in an effort to pull down the leaf. They also used blow torches to make cuts in the panel to facilitate its fall, all to no avail.
Thankfully, nobody has been hurt in the struggles.
When the work began, the contractor had anticipated that one panel a week would be removed.
Read more here.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12032/1207221-100.stm#ixzz1lDOfOoyL
Xcentic Ripper makes light work of concrete on inner-city site.
Regular readers will know that we have followed the progress of the Xcentric Ripper, a hydraulic breaker alternative, ever since our buddies at ECY were awarded the UK agency for the attachment.
Of course, this being the notoriously conservative demolition business, the introduction of anything slightly out of the ordinary was treated with a degree of skepticism.
However, as this video from a London site highlights, the Ripper is more than a match for reinforced concrete and looks very much at home in a demolition environment.
Crane cab torn off as bridge span slips.
Crews working on the Sissiboo River bridge in Nova Scotia were fortunate to avoid serious injury yesterday when a 55-tonne span of the former railway bridge came down faster than expected.
Workers with AW Leil Cranes of Dartmouth were using a 200-tonne crane on a barge operated by the main contractors, RJ McIsaac of Antigonish to lower the steel span about near 5:30 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012.
The span was most of the way down, hanging about 20′ in the air. The barge, with the crane on it, was slowly backing away from the bridge when everything fell apart.
A corner of the span is lying on the end of the barge and the crane’s boom is lying crumpled over the barge and other equipment. The crane’s cab was torn clear off.
Approximately four men, including the crane operator, were believed to be working on the barge at the time of the accident and they all escaped with only some minor injuries.
Read more here.
First portion of Mellon Arena roof cut and dropped.
The demolition process for Pittsburgh’s Mellon Arena has been long, painful and controversial. On Saturday, it took a big step toward completion: The first of eight roof panels of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ former home was knocked into the structure.
“It went perfect. It all just floated down,” George Boehm, a contractor for Noralco Corp., which is overseeing the arena’s demolition
Contractors had already cut structural supports on the panel, which will be cut into smaller pieces for removal. The work for each panel will take about a week to two weeks to complete.
In coming weeks, there will be five similar demolition sessions at the arena. Saturday’s was postponed twice due to snow.
The final step of removing “the Igloo’s” roof will be cutting up the cantilever arm that has held the entire piece in place since the building opened in 1961; the Civic Auditorium was the world’s first major indoor sports stadium with a retractable roof—six of the panels folded into two.
Read more here, or view the video below.
Worker hurt on New Zealand’s largest demolition project remains in induced coma.
The father of eight who fell off a ladder while working on the Hotel Grand Chancellor will have major surgery today as he continues to recover in Christchurch Hospital.
Chris Ngatai, 42, of Linwood, suffered a broken neck and head injuries when he fell while working between the 23rd and 24th floors on January 20.
Ngatai has worked for Fletcher Construction in Christchurch for six years, starting as a labourer and rising through the ranks, directing and driving cranes with the construction giant.
Operation manager Jack Harris said Ngatai was a family man who loved music and who mentored Maori children.
“He gets on very well with all his peers throughout the company and none of them would have a bad word to say about him.”
Harris said Ngatai, who has been in an induced coma since the accident, was recovering slowly.
“He’s going OK. He’s got a big operation [today] to fix a few things.”
It was too early to say if Ngatai would make a full recovery, Harris said.
Read more here.
Our thanks to Lawrence Roberts at Avonsidechch for bringing this article to our attention.
Two-part video of German tower block being demolished by Caterpillar high reach.
During our daily sift through the vast expanses of the YouTube library, we came across this new two-part video detailing the high reach demolition of a tower block int he German city of Stuttgart.
We know very little else about the video, aside from the fact that it was shot by artist Jens Walko and that the second part has a Twin Peaks-esque soundtrack. But lovers of high reach excavators will enjoy this: