A new stainless steel and concrete bridge, the first of its kind in the UK, has opened to pedestrians and vehicles in Pooley Bridge, Cumbria. It replaces its 250-year-old stone predecessor, which was destroyed during severe flooding as a result of Storm Desmond in 2015. The new single-span bridge has
The main aims of the Centre of Excellence are to provide opportunities in Temporary Works and Construction Method Engineering, with a postgraduate course available and targeted research projects with direct industry involvement. About The Centre of Excellence comprises a large number of academic staff across engineering disciplines who are committed
A new wireless load monitoring system is in use at an Oxford construction site to provide real-time measurement of forces on basement props. Temporary works specialist Mabey is using its new LIVEpin load monitoring system for the first time to monitor prop loads at the 85m x 300m basement propping
A new stainless steel and concrete bridge, the first of its kind in the UK, has opened to pedestrians and vehicles in Pooley Bridge, Cumbria. It replaces its 250-year-old stone predecessor, which was destroyed during severe flooding as a result of Storm Desmond in 2015. The new single-span bridge has been designed to withstand extreme weather conditions and is in keeping with its location in Ullswater on the edge of the Lake District National Park. Hanson UK worked with contractor Eric Wright Civil Engineering Ltd to create a bespoke concrete mix for the lower arch of the steel bridge, designed and constructed to provide structural strength, and also supplied and laid the asphalt to complete the project. The steelwork for the new bridge was manufactured off-site in two sections, fabricated and welded on an adjacent piece of land, where the concrete lower arch was installed to allow the whole structure to be lifted into place over the River Eamont. The high early strength concrete mix included Hanson Regen GGBS (ground granulated blastfurnace slag), a cement replacement product which enhances the durability of the concrete while adding to its sustainability credentials. It is a by-product and using it to replace one tonne of Portland cement reduces the embodied CO2 of the concrete by around 780kg. Its use in large pours also helps minimise the production of heat, reducing the risk of thermal cracking. In total 1,200 cubic metres of concrete containing Regen have been supplied by Hanson’s nearby Penrith concrete plant to create the lower arch, bridge deck, bridge abutment and walls, highway approach retaining walls and several temporary works. “Concrete supply to this project was always going to be a challenge due to the location, unique characteristics of the bridge and the tight deadline,” said Nick Graham, technical sales officer at Hanson Concrete. Technical services manager Terry Balmer added: “Our technical team was involved early in the design stage due to the complex concrete requirements, especially for the high-quality visual concrete that makes up the deck composite, and this partnership working was fundamental to the success of the project.” To complete the project, Hanson supplied 275 tonnes of asphalt from its nearby plant at Shap, which was laid by the company’s specialist contracting team. This included 130 tonnes of Tufflex, chosen for its durability and high resistance to cracking, for the surface course. In addition to the complex nature of the bridge, the final abutment work, concrete arch and composite deck – as well as the asphalt – were all supplied under the added pressure of the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated issues entailed with furloughed staff and social distancing protocols.
The main aims of the Centre of Excellence are to provide opportunities in Temporary Works and Construction Method Engineering, with a postgraduate course available and targeted research projects with direct industry involvement. About The Centre of Excellence comprises a large number of academic staff across engineering disciplines who are committed to addressing industry challenges associated with construction processes. This groups has many years of experience in providing insight into practical problems and have access to state-of-the-art testing facilities that allow exploration into simple and complex problems. People Research The main aim of the Centre of Excellence is to undertake research that will support the Temporary Works Forum (TWf) in driving “long-term change and waste reduction in the way we construct”. The Centre of Excellence at City, University of London, supported by the Temporary Works Forum (TWf), have two doctoral research projects on-going, please see the descriptions below: 1. Safety of Working Platforms for Tracked Plant Formed from Construction Demolition Waste. The key design criterion for working platform design is whether it can safely support the application of an extremely high monotonic load applied eccentrically through the tracks of plant. Thus, the design criterion is stability. The BRE guide idealises this load case as load acting over an equivalent area, rectangular in plan, which lies on layered ground. The depth of the upper layer, the working platform, is determined by assuming a punch through failure mechanism in this layer and conventional bearing capacity failure in the subgrade. Designers following this method then need to determine the appropriate angle of friction to be used in the calculation of the resistance of the platform material (construction demolition waste) to punching failure. The aim of this approach is to provide a conservative design method given that insufficient data exists. This research is being carried out by Greta Tanghetti under the supervision of Dr Richard Goodey. 2. The strength and stability of steel reinforcement cages in their temporary state. The contributing strength of a steel reinforcement cage to that of a reinforced concrete column, beam, slab or wall is well understood. However, the strength and stability of that same cage during its assembly, handling and whilst lifting into position prior concreting is not. Whilst a number of guidance documents exist for industry to consult, they contain no real guidance for their technical assessment. This poor understanding of the behaviour of these highly flexible structures, coupled with changing industrial practices involved with their construction, means that there continues to be accidents from stability collapses and tie failures during the temporary state. The aim of the project is to establish the strength and stability of reinforcement cages in their temporary state to make suitable recommendations and assessment methodologies to improve industry guidance and best practice leading to a safer construction environment. This research is being carried out by Konstantinos Kalfas under the supervision of Dr Brett McKinley. If you are interested in contributing to either of these projects please contact the Director of the Centre of Excellence Dr Andrew McNamara. Facilities Civil Engineering Laboratory We have access to an array of recently refurbished facilities, including exceptional laboratories. The Geotechnical Centrifuge Facility is the centrepiece of the Civil Engineering Laboratory which also accommodates a large flexible laboratory space used for centrifuge model preparation, model testing at 1g, concrete testing and teaching. Adjacent to this are concrete mixing and casting facilities, a temperature-controlled soil element testing laboratory and a concrete durability laboratory. Read more about the Civil Engineering Laboratory’s facilities Structures Laboratory In addition we have access to a Strong Floor and loading frames including new strong-wall being developed for lateral loading of column and tall structures. This particular facility has seen £800K investment in equipment for teaching and research including high flow computer controlled hydraulic loading for static, cyclic and dynamic & hybrid testing with ring-main, static compression up to 12MN and 50kN tension testing for steel materials. Wind Tunnel The Department of Mechanical Engineering & Aeronautics have also initially agreed to the use of their Wind Tunnel Laboratory facilities. These are renowned for being newly upgraded and leading-edge facilities. Education New MSc in Temporary Works and Construction Method Engineering Our new MSc degree, the first and only of its kind in the UK, provides a specialist qualification for those involved in the design and construction of temporary works and addresses industry need for such a professional qualification. The Temporary Works Forum (TWf), which promotes best practice within the UK construction industry*, has designated City, University of London as a Centre of Excellence in Temporary Works and Construction Method Engineering and collaborated in the development and delivery of this new masters. For more information on our MSc degree please see our Post-graduate courses page or contact the Director of the Centre of Excellence Dr Andrew McNamara. The first cohort of students on the new MSc Temporary Works and Construction Method Engineering with Bill Hewlett, former chairman of the Temporary Works Forum and Andrew McNamara, programme director and director of the Centre of Excellence for Temporary Works and Construction Method Engineering.
A new wireless load monitoring system is in use at an Oxford construction site to provide real-time measurement of forces on basement props. Temporary works specialist Mabey is using its new LIVEpin load monitoring system for the first time to monitor prop loads at the 85m x 300m basement propping scheme for the £500m Westgate Centre redevelopment. Laing O’Rouke is the project’s main contractor for Crown Estates and Land Securities. Sitting in the place of the shear pin that anchors a prop, Mabey’s LIVEpin technology comprises a data-enabled shear pin that measures the axial load on the prop, communicating wirelessly with on-site dataloggers that save and retransmit the data. Readings are transmitted every 30 minutes. Although LIVEpin was not specified for this project, Mabey opted to install LIVEpins on two out of the 114 props it has supporting the excavation. The system allows for the setting of load thresholds which, when exceeded, trigger a switch to a 60-second reporting cycle to enable fine-grained analysis and recording. Once loads drop below the preset threshold, the reporting cycle is reset to every 30 minutes. The dataloggers on site store the data and simultaneously upload it to the Mabey LIVEsite web portal for real-time monitoring and analysis. Mabey engineering director Dave Holland explained: “We wanted to be able to ascertain the load in a strut using the most accurate method possible. By locating the gauges in the shear pin at the end of the strut, we have achieved an exceptionally high accuracy of ±2% under concentric and eccentric loads and at varying temperatures and magnitudes. Redundancy is built into the system, so the LIVEpin and the dataloggers store data as well as transmitting it, meaning that no data is lost in the event of a network or wireless outage.” Mabey’s LIVEpin is the latest addition to its range of LIVE instrumentation products, which includes environmental monitoring, geodetic and geotechnic monitoring, and temperature monitoring, all integrated into Mabey’s LIVEsite web portal.
