Abi Group Contractors has been awarded the major package (Package 4) of the $106m Cooroy to Curra Upgrade of the Bruce Highway at the northern end of the Sunshine Coast.  This package involves the completion of the Highway’s realignment at Skying Creek and Northern Interchange, including new connections to Traverston Road and Gympie-Brooloo Road.

Meales’ Sunshine Coast operation has been engaged to undertake all concrete placement packages on the project for Abi Group and its subcontractors, JF Hull and Piling Contractors.

The scope of works consists of a variety of components including numerous kilometres of shotcrete drains, five separate bridges and overpasses.

With our fleet providing flexibility in size, capacity and number of units, Meales Sunshine Coast has been able to deploy the most appropriate equipment at every stage to promptly and efficiently service the project.

Another pedestrian bridge for the city of Brisbane, this project once again requires pumping solutions outside the norm.. Due to extremely bad    
site access on the city side of the project a long fixed concrete pump line was requested as the preferred method of placement. 

The design and construct contract commenced on 1 October 2007, with project completion scheduled for September 2009, in time for Queensland's 150th year anniversary celebrations.

With the Hale St Bridge (officially named the Goodwill Bridge) well and truly completed we take this opportunity to look back on how this bridge structure was completed and in particular how the concrete was placed on this project.
From the earliest days of planning this project it was obvious this particular job was not going to be your standard bridge project. Some of the more challenging obstacles  presented were – pile caps situated mid river with no allowance for false work bridges, counter levered insitue bridge spans with no vehicle access and one of Brisbane’s busiest walk / pathways and road carriage ways running through the project.
The final outcome resulted in a large array of equipment being used to complete this project. Some of that equipments was as follows:

• Mobile boom pumps ranging in size from 25 to 48m to complete the land based structures.
• Two high pressure Schwing trailer pumps servicing two Schwing separate placing booms mounted on floating barges with concrete conveyed through 4 x 150m static lines on floating walkways.
• Schwing high pressure trailer pump servicing a mobile boom pump which was lifted onto the bridge structure.
• Water wash out system was used to complete all line clearing

The $150 million upgrade and replacement of Mackay’s Forgan Bridge has recently been completed in June 2011 by Golding Contractors. The project required Golding’s Contractors to construct a new 4 lane bridge 485m long over the Pioneer River to replace the existing 2 lane bridge, plus roadwork’s and intersection upgrades, and replacement of Barnes Creek bridge with a new 4 lane bridge also.
Golding Contractors engaged Meales Mackay operation to undertake the concrete pumping duties required for this project. Part of  the projects demands required concrete piles 35m deep (filled with water) and headstocks to be able to be poured running 4 spans ahead of the main bridge decks and structures.
As all piles contained water, this would require all concrete to be placed through trammie pipes to avoid concrete segregation. Unfortunately these piles were well out of reach of large mobile boom pumps, therefore requiring a system to be designed allowing 35m of trammie pipes to be raised while still connected to 80m of static line during the pouring process. .
After some careful planning with Golding Contractors a suitable and successful method was put in place which meet everyone’s criteria and resulted in approximately 100 wet piles being poured through a 42m boom, 80m of static line and 50m of trammie system.
Once again Meales used their unique water wash out system to safely clear the lines at the completion of each pour. 

Leighton Contractors have been appointed principal contractors of the $700 million Ipswich Motorway upgrade. Works include 
widening of Ipswich Motorway to six lanes and upgrades to all interchanges and bridge structures.

This project requires numerous mobile pumps on any given day to complete any possible type of civil structure

As a part of the Queensland Governments infrastructure plan, the Sunshine Motorway is undergoing a major upgrade. This involves the construction of a new Three lane bridge over the Maroochy River and several other interchanges and duplications

The Goodwill bridge is a vital pedestrian link between South Bank and the Brisbane City. 
At 500 meters long, from one side of the river to the other this project was always going to be challenging and different to any other pumping    
job previously. For various reasons this project required a floating line from one side of the river across to each of the different structures       
where a mobile boom pump was placed on a barge to help convey the concrete to the required heights. This concrete was pumped from the river     
bank with the help of a high pressure skid pump.