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Last year, we shared a video of 6 Scottish high rise buildings that were imploded simultaneously, which was one of our favorite demolition videos of 2015. The problem, however, was that only 4 of them actually fell completely, causing delays as crews had to use high reach machinery to complete the job.
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The final product of record breaking structures get a lot of publicity, but what the public doesn’t see is the years of hard work that went into breaking that record. Construction workers are the unsung heroes projects, rarely getting the recognition that they deserve. Last week, we showed you the amazing footage of the tallest and longest glass bridge, which is a 1410 foot long (430m) and 984 foot tall (300m) fear inducing tourist attraction in China’s Avatar Mountains.
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If you’re afraid of heights, you might have a new worst enemy. Tucked away in the beautiful Avatar mountains, where the movie of the same name was filmed, stands the newest and current record holder for the world’s tallest and highest glass bridge, boasting incredible views of the surrounding landscape.
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Construction Junkie’s motto is that it’s not a party unless you gather up 115 of your closest friends and their excavators and wreak some havoc on a bused old highway overpass. Apparently, some people in China know how to party.
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Yesterday marked the 15 Anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001. The attacks left a noticeable hole in the New York skyline for several years after the Twin Towers collapsed, but that hole has since been filled with a new and symbolic tower, the One World Trade Center.
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The story of David vs. Goliath is an inspiration to many people in the world and apparently even more so to one man from Finland. With motivations still unknown today, the guy tried and tried to break an excavator by repeatedly throwing rocks at the machine. Was he mad at the machine? Perhaps it looked at him funny. Was he mad at the excavator operator? That’s a more likely scenario, but the operator wasn’t having any of it.
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3.1 miles of bridge does not equal 3.1 miles of on grade highway. In fact, it’s not even close. In order to build the new New York Bridge, which is replacing the existing Tappan Zee bridge that crosses the Hudson River, 14 miles of main span cables, 50 miles of foundation pilings, 300 thousand cubic yards of concrete, and 220 million pounds of steel are needed to complete the structure. Oh, it’s also going to take another 2 years to build, on top of the 3 they’ve already been working on it.
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If positioned the right way, paper is known to give some pretty mean paper cuts, so say to the office tethered thrill seekers of the world. Try to cut wood by running a sheet of paper against it, however, and you’ll end up a mangled piece of paper. But, perhaps we’ve been using paper the wrong way all along. Maybe it’s a metaphor for life, put an object or a person in the wrong situation and get poor results, but put them in the right situation and you’ll reap the rewards.
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Nobody likes traffic, especially when lane closures and construction are involved. Construction zones are prone to increased accidents, which also put construction workers in extreme danger. The best way to reduce traffic, accidents, and worker injuries is to reduce the on-site schedule, but how do you go about doing that?
The Connecticut Department of Transportation (CDOT) needed to overhaul its highly trafficked Route 8 in Bridgeport, CT which included several bridges. The bridges, which were built in the 1970s, handled over 88,000 vehicles per day and had degraded to a point that the CDOT determined the bridges had reached the end of their useful life. The original estimated schedule for the bridge overhaul was 2 years, which officials determined would be way too long to displace that amount of traffic, so they looked for alternative methods. In the end, the CDOT opted for a Design-Build concept with Manafort Brothers, Inc. and Parsons Brinkerhoff which would ultimately reduce the total on-site work schedule to two 14-periods over the summer of 2016.
The $35 million project not only used Design-Build to shorten the schedule, but also employed the Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) technique. To further reduce the schedule, the ABC method utilized Prefabricated Bridge Units (PBUs), which were large sections of the bridge that were fabricated off site. Once substantial completion of the PBUs was reached, the on-sire work began. Each 14 day period wound up closing one direction at a time, which shifted traffic to the opposite side. The new bridges are close to being complete now, with a finish date set for September 2016 and the DOT is hoping that maintenance of the new bridge will be significantly reduced compared to the old bridge. According to the website set up for the Route 8 construction, the bridge design incorporated “modern weathering steel beams that require no paint or maintenance over their anticipated 75 year lifespan.”
While it’s not quite as fast as this this multi-lane overpass that was removed and replaced in 43 hours in China or this 230 foot long tunnel installed under a highway in the Netherlands in just 3 days, it’s definitely a step in the right direction for improving contractor efficiency and public safety.
You can watch a timelapse video of the demolition of the old bridges and the construction of the new, uploaded to Youtube by CME Associates, below:
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Why do the athletes get to have all of the fun during the Olympics? We construction workers deserve a little bit of the action, too! In order for American swimmers to be chosen to represent Team USA in the Olympics, they must first qualify at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, which were held in Omaha, Nebraska this year.
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On Tuesday morning, February 23, the Syracuse Fire Department responded to a call about a collapsed crane on a construction site near the university. Thankfully, no injuries were reported.