Mega Bridge Construction: A Technical Marvel Emerges | FD Engineering

Penang Island Malaysia this former British colony was always a vital stop for spice Traders following ancient shipping routes for centuries boats and ferries were the only way to leave the island until 1985 when a 14 kilometer Bridge linked Penang to the mainland The Flash Forward 20 years and traffic on the first Penang Bridge has reached a Breaking Point one hundred thousand cars are crossing daily times a bold decision is made to construct a new bridge spanning nearly 17 kilometers over water it will require two companies one Malaysian and one Chinese to work in lockstep to create a 1.5 billion dollar Bridge strong enough to endure for the next 120 years but to build it would require battling the forces of nature suddenly the plane already shaking you know shaking like a devil you know if tsunami have happened to come over I think so that's it everybody's gone and unforeseen events something want to fall down I believe managed by emergency brake then but to collapse if they overcome these hurdles they'll have built the longest bridge in Southeast Asia [Music] the second Penang Bridge envisioned as the longest in Southeast Asia it will cross the Penang Strait to connect batumaung on the south end of the island to Batu kawan on the mainland it will ease crowding on the first Penang bridge and bring economic growth to both areas Island needs a development therefore we should build another bridge on the south of the island for this bridge the engineers have merged two Bridge designs the first a box girder bridge more than 16 kilometers long this is the approach span the second a shorter but more prominent cable Staybridge is called the mainspan to get this sea crossing bridge exactly right will require skilled coordination between two construction teams China Harbor engineering company or Czech from China and uem Builders from Malaysia and the Malaysian government has set up a special company to manage the massive project is the man in charge [Music] must be beneficial for the overall completion of the job is Czech is in charge of the bridges foundation called the substructure over 5 000 piles driven below the sea floor and 586 piers structure for the approach span is uem's job over 8 000 concrete box girders joined together to form the road deck this is one of the unique Construction in the world where the pleat is horizontal if you are careless you might end up with super structure actually not following the alignment of the substructure the check crew alone will build the cable Stay Bridge for the substructure here the team will bore 120 meters into Bedrock some of the deepest Bridge foundations in the world for its superstructure they will anchor 144 cables to the road deck and string them through pylons that rise 19 meters in the air located at the deepest section of the Penang Strait this is also the highest point of the bridge with a 30 meter clearance to allow ship passage below but here it's also the greatest danger of a ship collision and without protection an accident here could weaken the bridge with possible catastrophic results to safeguard the pylons the pile caps that form their base are built with giant steel fenders packed with formwork and a special concrete that can repel salt water's corrosive effects for our pickup Construction the volume is up to 2500 tons it requires huge volume of concrete at one time to get that much concrete out at Sea the crew brings in their own floating concrete Factory it operates continuously for over three days straight you need to make sure the mixing plan is working well sometimes the pipes will be blocked sometimes the material is not well mixed challenges are there the Malaysian heat adds another challenge workers struggle to keep the concrete below 36 degrees Centigrade utter poor would risk the concrete shrinking as it hardens potentially leading to structure failure and bridge collapse to battle soaring temperatures bags and bags of ice are brought to the batching site to cool the water for the concrete mix but bags of ice are not enough you need to take extra input to reduce the temperature from outside water pipes are embedded within the pile cap structural reinforcement constantly cooling it while the concrete flows we place inside the concrete to reduce the internal temperature and the concrete will be under control after pouring concrete for more than 48 hours continuously the first of the pile caps for the main span is finished while Jason and the Czech team focus on the Bridge's cable stay mainspan the uem crew on land are building the Box girders that will form the road deck for the long stretch across the sea a vast pre-fabrication Factory reaching as far as the eye can see is set up to produce thousands of box girders building more than 8 000 segmental box good is not an easy task we set up this Factory with all the equipment and it covers about 50 acres which is more than 50 football fields each box girder begins with six tons of rebar cut and tied together into a frame [Music] foreign the steel frame is transferred to a mold with a giant crane each girder soaks up to five truckloads of concrete the challenge is to make sure that the concrete is waterproof the marine environment is very aggressive with it corrodes steel you see water gets to the steel the rusting process will start the steel the leg span and it'll break the concrete to add to the challenge each of these box girders need to be tailor-made each segment will only fit into one particular location in the bridge it's almost like an individual person it's got a specific shape specific gradient built into it and you've got specific inserts in it the s-curve in the bridge requires that each block is engineered individually so it will fit perfectly in this immense jigsaw puzzle there is a problem girders are coming out of molds packed with holes and lined with cracks subpar girders could spell disaster it was really difficult actually when uem was starting the casting every segment the cast we rejected them because of the poor quality of the segments the situation is severely delaying construction the crew is making only three bridge-worthy box girders a week they need to produce 30 times that amount right at the beginning it was very very slow we were casting two or three segments per week sometimes at this pace it will take more than 75 years to cast enough box girders there's neither the money nor the time for this sort of trial and error something must be done or there will be no second Penang Bridge more than 8 000 box girders must be joined together to create the approach span the longest stretch of the second Penang Bridge but the girders are coming out of the molds riddled with honeycomb like air bubbles the defective ones have to be destroyed and the bridge is falling behind schedule PM senior manager of primacantin is called in to troubleshoot the dire situation he discovers there's a problem with the concrete mix we have consulted concrete experts worldwide we brought them here actually at considerable expense and we have had them look at the issues and give their opinions and calculations and Engineering input with that you know we resolved all these issues Brahma content faces another challenge the Box girder crew comes from more than six different countries many of them inexperienced you got 500 600 workers workers finally Prema content gets everything in sync five months from the beginning we resolved all these issues and from then on it was just looking forward all the way from two to three segments a week the team goes to 10 to 16 segments a day defective girders aren't the only obstacle to completing the second Penang Bridge well into construction concerns are raised about the Bridge's ability to withstand an earthquake 26 December 2004 a 9.3 magnitude earthquake hits the west coast of Northern Sumatra tremors are felt in Penang and a deadly tsunami slams The Island Malaysia is not known as a high-risk earthquake zone but there's been an increase in seismic activity in the country recently we're not very far you know from all these actively seismic area of the world so therefore we shouldn't be complacent and then we should take all the precaution necessary especially to protect the uh important structures Dr Ismail isn't taking any chances and decides to make the second Penang Bridge one of the most earthquake-proof bridges in the world he finds Dr kamaruddin Malik an expert in large structure earthquake protection they had constructed and they had designed them could not take the earthquake so they have only two options then you know one is to strengthen the piling which costs them more money and then lengthen the construction period and number two they could use a high damping rubber bearings which not only could protect the piling but also it can protect the superstructure superstructure here means that the the decks yeah Dr kamarudin demonstrates how high damping rubber bearings work uh using these uh model of structures of different height I mean this is maybe you can consider one or two-story structure or even a bridge five-story 10 story or 20 story or maybe this one you can consider to be Patronus twin tower 88 story I'm going to simulate an earthquake and we'll see how these structures of different height will respond you might think the tallest would shake the most but it's the shortest all structures with a low or tall structures they have what we call Natural frequencies imagine Roy if you are tall enough strong enough right you are standing beside the Patronus Twin Tower you push the pattern string away at the top and you release you can see Patron tower now is moving at what we call natural frequency and people have calculated is about 0.1 Hertz so it's very low number so now we go to this structure that respond the most to the earthquake it vibrates faster so that is about three or four Hertz the damaging frequencies of the earthquake typically between two to six Hertz so what happens is that when the earthquake hits the Petra twin tower the natural frequencies of this building is not within that window of damaging frequency of the earthquake so nothing happened to this building because the natural frequency of this structure is about three or four Hertz within that window of damaging frequency of the earthquake two to six Hertz then what happened is that the process of what we call resonance effect takes place in other words amplification of the response because the natural frequency of this is more or less the same as the nature of the earthquake frequency when we put rubber bearings underneath this building this building will now behave like a door structure so that is the function of the rubber bearings we change the nature frequencies of the structure from three to four Hertz to typically 0.4 Hertz 0.5 Hertz that is the function of the rubber bearing this building would no longer behave like this it will behave like this very slow technological specifications are developed by Dr kamarudin and his team at the Malaysian rubber boards tun Abdul razak Research Center in the United Kingdom the high damping natural rubber bearings are then manufactured in a factory 300 kilometers from Penang these devices consists of laminates of rubber and metals it's unit in the sense that it is semi-intelligent under normal circumstances there are no earthquakes the bearings are very stiff but the minute the earthquake comes the bearings automatically become soft when it's soft it will automatically isolate the vibration or the energy of the earthquake from being transmitted to the structure once installed the more than 1 300 rubber bearings help ensure the bridge is earthquake proof they're now ready for the Box girders that will form the road deck the 100 ton girders are loaded on barges capable of carrying 700 tons but there's a huge problem the water is less than a meter deep in places that's much too shallow for the barges and could bring construction to a halt something Dr Ismail and the team cannot afford the Box girders sit waiting at the mainland plant but the crew can't get them to the piers the water is too shallow for the barges the only solution available dredging the sea the Chinese team check uses power shovels to create a 200 meter wide Channel just enough space for two barges but it's a narrow passage the difficult part actually was when they had common usage of the rich Channel check has already built the structures on one side on the other side is mud flats we have to have at any time capability for two vessels for to pass by Towing Badges and badges are not very easily controlled with the tidal currents one go isn't enough the huge shovels must operate throughout the construction process theoretically you dress once and that's enough but unluckily we are finding that the channel filtered out very fast so we have to do a lot of Maintenance rigging to keep the barges running smoothly some 12 million cubic meters of muck and silt the equivalent of 4 800 olympic sized swimming pools is removed and returned to the ocean more than 20 kilometers away on the approach span four custom-made specialized cranes called launching gantries lift the girders and hold them in position for the deck building crew the launching gantries build the bridge span by span for us to proceed with the bridge without this launching the dust we can have all the segments but we can put the segments right on top of the PS each barge carrying up to five girders is positioned below the launching Gantry and studied by a holding barge we can maneuver the holding batteries also Maneuvers the segment delivery badge one wrong move could result in a fatal accident a specially trained team Maneuvers a series of ropes to place the barge in the precise position [Music] a winch attached to the launcher lifts the 100 ton blocks the mammoth crane will lift 14 girders from pier to pier the segments are joined with super strength adhesive and high tensile strength steel cables that are stressed to the Limit thank you now there's one giant span between the two piers and the launching Gantry moves forward and repeats as uem builds the approach span the Czech team led by Jason Lee are racing ahead at the mainspan two pylons towering over 90 meters the height of a 30-story building will support the cable stays more than 600 tons of steel is used for the reinforcement of each pylon as they build the pylons the Czech team simultaneously erects temporary steel supports to install the crossbeam with an enormous drop constructing the steel supports is a perilous task when you try to leave the steel tubes how can you make sure that these tubes can be lifted properly and also all these Stoops need to be welded one by one the safety there could be a problem the massive Cross Beam serves as a tie for the two towers and is the starting point of the road deck the main span deck is built incrementally using traveling formwork with each deck segment cast a stay cable is installed multiple steel cables are strung through long density plastic tubes anchored to one side of the deck run up and through openings in the pylons then dropped back down and anchored to the deck's other side every cable is individually stressed to its maximum strength fully installed the 144 cable stays have a combined braking strength of over 210 000 tons that's enough to hold back over 200 jumbo Jets at Full Throttle another challenge is Malaysia's capricious weather the bridge must be strong enough to withstand these same forces where these tubes come in each is designed with a thin lip called a strike that spirals from end to end this protects the inner cables from corrosion and breaks up any assault of rain and wind that could induce vibrations and weaken the bridge 11th April 2012. Malaysians are celebrating the installation of a new king but at the main span the crew is focused on the job at hand 3 30 PM tower crane operator ramacharai Kanan gets the shock of his life suddenly the crane already shaking you know shaking like the devil you know something then I pray tremors are felt all around the island yeah um an 8.6 magnitude earthquake has hit the west coast of Northern Sumatra just 419 kilometers away the fear on everyone's mind is that of a killer tsunami the site is about can say about 800 meters from the sea Sea happen to to come over I think so that's it everybody's gone April 2012 an 8.6 magnitude earthquake has hit the west coast of Northern Sumatra not far from where a massive earthquake struck in 2004. it sent Tremors throughout southeast Asia and spawned a deadly tsunami that hit Penang and another may be on its way the Box girder Factory is right on the water's edge nearly 1 000 employees live and work here supervisor Anwar Abdul gets an urgent SMS [Music] the earthquake triggers a tsunami warning across the Indian Ocean [Music] killer waves could hit Penang within a couple of hours here and any in any tsunami event the water rise up very high so my main concern was loss of life evacuating an area that is larger than 50 football fields is not easy all workers dropped stopped all work everyone gathered at the Gathering point but there's no place to run the area surrounding the factory for miles is completely flat we press every vehicle that we had into service transport these people out then again you look at look at the surrounding it's all flat how far do you transport them I don't know how far inland the tsunami is going to come so finally we've got the idea with contact there's a stadium authorities you know they are then about six seven eight meters above the any potential water level it's five o'clock and there is just one hour to complete the mission they must transport nearly 1 000 workers to the Batu cavan Stadium some five kilometers away by 6 30 PM everyone is safe at the stadium along with another 1 000 people from the surrounding area [Music] everyone anxiously Waits at 10 pm authorities finally lift the tsunami warning but it doesn't mean the earthquake hasn't impacted Bridge works one Pier cast with concrete just two hours before the earthquake provokes concern construction manager Yusuf Musa takes a closer look along this line every bridge in the world has cracks that those that are too wide or Too Deep will weaken the bridge Yusuf conducts tests to determine if they must destroy the pier and start again they extract a core to determine the damage we have to check how severe is the crack Yusuf puts the core sample under a microscope to assess the width and the depth of the crack the severity is so much that we need to do the remedial for the crack the solution concrete injections powered into the cracks to seal the fissures [Music] but it's not just this pier that must be thoroughly inspected Dr Ismail has called in extra help to make sure nothing is missed an independent team of Engineers led by Matt Carter monitor progress and ensure every centimeter of the bridge meets the highest standards we come here every two months to spend a couple of days looking over the site with the client and the contractor checking that the quality is is to standard and that what's being built is what should be built Matt was there when box girder production was stalled it's important to understand about a bridge like this is it's it's very much a unique bespoke project there's always a learning curve for sure there might be some quality issues so you need a quality control system in place to identify those issues and then the construction team needs to take that seriously and improve over the course of the project and improve they have on 20th December 2012 Prima contents box girder construction team cast The Last of the 8092 segments it's a proud day for all it's like a baby it was handed to me with chickenpox so I managed to cure it and it's grown into a healthier adult today today it graduates today it's 18 years old when we're completing the casting today this is about 100 days ahead and more than 1 000 segments ahead of the same dude [Applause] but all will be for naught if the main spandex don't match up exactly the two decks have been inching forward Across The Straits of Penang day after day week after week for a full nine months when the last cable stay is attached they are just three meters apart by April 2013 the second Penang Bridge reaches a critical stage the big question will the decks make a perfect match for final closure for much spend over the Kip's day Bridge under such condition the structure is quite flexible due to the wind or temporary effect [Music] surveyors constantly monitor the progress to make sure it matches the design plans be an eagle in spite of all their efforts there's a problem a 30 millimeter difference between the two sides the engineers have a surprising fix water tons of water a pool on the lower deck is filled with 100 tons of water while another pool on the higher deck is filled with 150 tons the use of water is a counterweight so after they put in the it's complicated maneuvering to get the perfect fit workers fasten down a giant clamp to hold the deck segments together Engineers must now wait for the cool of the night before they pour the concrete a special prayer is held on the bridge to commemorate the completion of the main span for the whole wreath this is important because we have Italy equipped the final factorial connection between batokawan and batumau on the other side as they pour the concrete they gradually release tons of water over the deck [Music] the out of Tolerance at last the bridge meets linking all the road deck segments together for the entire 16.9 kilometers across the sea today the bridge is fairly closed we have been working on this project three years ago at that moment one thing nothing was here now you can see a bridge is standing here personally I'm very much excited and also very proud that we can be here to share with the Malaysian people our team This Magnificent moment we are so much proud it's a major achievement but a tragedy awaits 6th June 2013. Penang Island peak hour traffic a bridge ramp is under construction by a third party contractor working independently from Czech and UAM [Music] I is driving home from work with a friend something want to fall down I believe managed by emergency brake then we automatically were there any other vehicles ahead of her and if there were did they make it to the other side 6th June 2013 the mainspan is complete and the second Penang bridge is due to open in three months time Cairo ISAT is supervising construction on a ramp that links the island to the bridge [Music] suddenly he hears a large crack foreign rescue teams are immediately dispatched to the scene a 30 meter section of the unfinished ramp has fallen 18 meters over a dual Lane Trunk Road foreign [Music] foreign the wreckage is immense there's no way to see if anyone is trapped in the rubble Rescuers must rely on people like telesheni who were there when the collapse occurred for details but no one knows how many people may be buried in the wreckage at almost 300 tons the rubble weighs more than three 737 airplanes a giant crane attempts but fails to clear the wreckage they work through the night and at 12 40 AM they discover the smashed corner of a car yeah [Music] the rescue teams push forward [Music] [Applause] muscle they find a broken number plate and call out for people with missing families to come full the department of occupational safety and health Dosh in Penang is keeping a close eye about one hour after the incident then I start together my man and we rush to save the area and got whatever basic information regarding the incident for us to start our investigation the ramp collapse raises grave concerns and Dosh issues a stop work notice with immediate effect they need time to conduct a full investigation into the cause in our investigation we will focus definitely the failure of the support for the formula and how they've they installed and also how they maintain it no stone will be left Unturned after the investigation if we have enough evidence that they break our law definitely we will take them to the court or we charge them though they work through the day and into the next night the rescue team seem no closer to the crushed vehicle they call in an excavator to pull away mangled formwork inal Aberdeen arrives at the ramp concerned that his brother did not come home last night and that the found number plate matches his brother's car he waits anxiously oh [Applause] 25 hours after the collapse I know abedin is found slumped over the dashboard of the car crushed by a beam his brother is both grateful and overwhelmed with grief [Music] the rescue team continued through the night and the following day to search for other victims is the only casualty but the accident means a delay in the completion of the bridge how long will Dosh take before allowing the construction to move on if at all a major ramp under construction by a third-party contractor working independently from Czech and UAM collapse in response the department of occupational safety and health Dosh and Penang issue a stop work notice to investigate we look at what are the possible causes designed installation of temporary support we do some analysis on the the ground we call in eyewitnesses and 60 plus people you know to get statement the result the contractor and subcontractor building the ramp are charged for failure to undertake safety measures during construction and ensure worker safety so the case now is ongoing and hopefully we will have a very positive result satisfied sufficient safety measures are now in place Dosh lifts the stop work order the ramp can be completed and construction enters its final phase the most important thing for us is actually to confirm the structural behavior of the bridge at the mainspan the bridge is designed to support 1 200 tons the bridge must match these specifications and there is only one way to check a load test an array of high-tech sensors track the Bridge's movement called its deflection levels as it's placed under enormous stress 17 trailers with a combined weight of 595 tons drive to the midpoint shows that the maximum deflection is only 25 mm whereas the consultant accepted previously is 31 mm so that shows that bridge is actually much stiffer than uh it was designed for by early December 2013 the collapsed ramp is restored and in the wake of the accident Dr Ismail insists on another load test to assure the public that the entire bridge is safe we've loaded to 360 tons basically 15 24 tonne lorries simple passenger vehicle is one ton to one and a half ton so that's a lot of weight in a short area what we've found is that the the bridge is behaving as expected deflections are actually less than than we expected so we're pleased with the results and overall I think it's been it's been a good and smooth operation first March 2014 the second Penang bridge is finally completed and ready for its public launch foreign Malaysians are eager to try out the new bridge and thousands have started queuing to make sure they are the first on the bridge tonight is a special night for Dr Ismael today is definitely very momentous we have been waiting for actually five years to come to this point and finally the bridge is going to be open tonight so definitely I feel very very happy [Music] [Applause] Columbia [Music] announced just this evening the new name honors the current king of Malaysia the second Penang Bridge the longest bridge in Southeast Asia is now complete building it required false starts battling the elements and perseverance but now the Sleek bridge that connects the island to the mainland with its gentle curve is a source of Pride to those who built it and many who travel its distance

Channel: Free Documentary - Engineering

Views: 430,028

Keywords: free documentary, free documentary engineering, engineering, engineering documentary, tech, tech documentary, constructions, constructions documentary, technology documentary, second penang bridge, bridge construction, tallest bridge, bridge construction in sea

Id: sFu1Uaybm8w

Length: 44min 0sec (2640 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 14 2023