As the only concrete pumping contractor able to supply two Telescopic Boom pumps Thiess John Holland recently assigned Meales the task of mass infilling over the cutting heads of the tunnel boring machines (TBM’S).
Once the TBM’s had completed their task of boring through 15km of tunnels under the Northern suburbs of Brisbane the cutting heads of these machines were needed to be removed from the remaining body of the TBM. As the size of these heads did not allow them to be removed from the tunnel the only option was to bury them in a large hole below the surface of the tunnel.
The scope for this project required 5000m3 of concrete to be placed non stop as quick as possible. After some careful planning between our operational managers and TJH engineers a game plan was soon set in concrete.
With limited space restricting the set up of multiple machines this meant the pour could only be completed with two pumps. However once again due to limited space room did not allow for 4 concrete agitators to service the 2 pumps which would be required to achieve a reasonable pour rate. Therefore a high pressure trailer pump was placed 100m further back in the tunnel with static line running into the second boom pump.
Starting at 5am Thursday morning and finishing in the early hours of Saturday morning some 5200m3 of concrete was pump with an average pour rate of approximately 120m3 per hour. With continuous pumping required operators were rotated through on 12 hour shifts.
Equipment used on this pour was 2 x Schwing 31mHT Telescopic Boom Pumps and I x Putzmeister High Pressure Trailer Pump.
A great effort by all involved in the Meales team and a special thanks to Chris Bagley for his organisation and planning in a very well run pour.
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