World’s largest resonance free hammer drives first pile in Shanghai!

The 70RF vibratory hammer has arrived in Shanghai! Shanghai Construction group received its first unit in July， ahead of the start of the city-wide Beiheng Corridor project. The first project to benefit from the new purchase is the Highway S3 project. This elevated highway project, located in Pudong New District in the vicinity of Disneyland， is to be built under high time pressure, right along subway line 16. We have written a lot about resonance free technology already, so we assume you already know that this technology has a proven track record of working in sensitive urban areas, so this article will not go into that again. 

So why is everyone so excited? A combination of new construction methods and new foundation equipment technology from ICE, has allowed the foundations for the S3 highway to be completed within a record two months’ time! The project reminds us of lean manufacturing processes first pioneered by Toyota and now best practice in many industries!

Not only were time records broken at S3, but the method being pioneered is also the greenest, most cost efficient foundation project used in China to date. The foundations of the S3 elevated highway are permanent steel casings, substituting the traditional in-situ concrete pile process where a drilling rig, bentonite, and steel reinforcement cages are used during the building of the poured concrete pile. The old method is slow, dirty, and unsuitable for inner-city construction projects. The new method is quick and clean and without resonance disturbance. In a city that seems to be under perpetual construction, local government and Shanghai residents simply do not tolerate disturbance from construction sites anymore.

The main issues that needed to be resolved to satisfy residents demands were:

• Eliminate bentonite drilling mud contamination on the construction site, to eliminate both mud and dust. This also eliminates further pollution down the chain as no drilling mud needs to be transported out of the city, and no bentonite waste is disposed of incorrectly thereby polluting rivers and waterways

• Reduce the amount of raw materials such as concrete, steel reinforcement used in the foundation

• Reduce the complexity of the construction method which consisted of too many different steps, adding to the cost and bringing flow into the building to make it impossible to finish a job of this scale within 2 months.

The use of permanent steel foundations on which the elevated highway pylons rest is the answer to the above issues. Steel foundations are environmentally friendly, fast and cheap to install with a vibratory hammer, help keep the construction site clean， and reduce the number of workers required on site. The casings have been treated with anti – corrosion to ensure their effective service life.

The second issue to address was what is known as FLOW. Flow describes a working method where the building process is optimized to be just in time. The ICE RF hammer was an essential breakthrough that transformed the slowest link that could not keep pace with the other processes, into a pace setter. At S3 the driving of the twelve 48m long casings needed for each pillar took a total of 2 hours. The incredible installation speed of a vibratory hammer brought the project’s completion date forward dramatically.

The high driving efficiency was achieved because the project manager excelled in site preparation. The 12 casings were pre-positioned in a frame to ensure verticality and to facilitate the welding of the different sections. The first 31m section of the pile was driven by the light and agile 20RF model, after which a welding team attached the second section and the 70RF moved in to drive the piles to 48 meters. The lean building method brings flow into the building process, allowing the client to install an average of 18 piles a day.

The new highway is built along the existing subway line 16. ICE’s resonance free piling technology was specified to ensure the subway would not be damaged by resonance.

The pillars of the elevated highway are connected to the foundations piles with 6 meters of steel reinforcement cages and concrete. Contrary to bored piles, only the top 5 meters of the casing are bored empty, the bearing capacity of the foundations is derived from the permanent steel casings which function as friction pile foundation. One meter of steel reinforcement extrudes from the top of the casing to be connected with the concrete platform.

The 12 foundation piles are connected with steel reinforcement and poured with concrete to make a solid foundation platform for the pillars.

This picture shows the finished platform, the prefabricated highway pillars will be transported to the site and lifted onto the platform, after which they will be connected to this foundation platform.

The pillars arrive pre-fabricated, they are lifted onto the platform and are connected with high strength concrete to the base. 

This completes the whole foundation construction. The next step is lifting the pre-fabricated road deck onto the waiting pillars.

This project proves that great efficiencies are still achievable in highway construction. A lean building process with good process flow saves construction time, increases productivity while reducing labor input and material cost. If you would like to know more about the developments that are shaking the foundations of Shanghai’s infrastructure playbook, don’t hesitate to get in touch with ICE today! 

World’s largest resonance free hammer drives first pile in Shanghai:https://www.kankanews.com/a/2016-07-30/0017625593.shtml