A total of 25 piles of 30-inch-diameter
steel are being driven on the west and
east footing of Pier 1. |
After the piles are cleaned, epoxy-coated rebar cages
are placed (note cage on the left of the photo).
Concrete is immediately placed in the piles. |
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Crews use a 2.7 meter (diameter) drilling head to drill beyond the
3m steel pile. The huge head will
drill below the tip of the pile to as much as 45 meters. |
A temporary bridge is currently under
construction to provide access to the
next phase of the project. |
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Wow! The construction of the suspension bridge
over Carquinez Strait is moving along swiftly. Better yet, a recent
barbecue for the laborers, staff and the owner celebrated the project's
excellent safety record. Congratulations to all involved in building
this amazing three-span, 3,465-foot-long structure.
In February, joint venture crews carefully lowered the falsework used
for the linkbeams in both towers. They used 60-ton strand jacks, taking
five hours to lower the falsework 30 meters to make sure the falsework
didn't damage the concrete towers while coming down. Both towers have
now reached their final height of 400 feet. Each tower has 12 foundation
piles (3 meters in diameter by 51 meters long), with an additional
42-meter rock socket.
On the north side of the project, concrete pouring has been completed
in the anchor blocks. Each block takes 3000 cubic meters of solid
concrete. The base of the temporary foot bridge is being installed
and work has started on the architectural wall. Meanwhile, on the
south side, construction was halted for several weeks while a subcontractor
demolished the existing steel approach to the existing bridge. That
bridge will be completely demolished, and replaced by the one under
construction now.
Now that the concrete works are winding down, and the preparation
for steelwork is underway, crews are getting ready for the next exciting
phase. Delivery has continued for the materials needed for the temporary
steelworks for the cable erection and temporary foot bridge. Fabrication
of the main cable in Japan has been completed. All that remains are
a few deliveries of the total 3,325 tons of cable.
The next major undertaking will be constructing the temporary foot
bridges running from one side of the river, over the two towers, to
the other side. This bridge will be used to erect the cables, and
later for the lifting of the deck elements. Spinning of the cable
is expected to start at the end of September 2002, and erecting of
the deck elements is scheduled to start in February 2003. |
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