Month: August 2019

HAKANIEMI: an indoor market completely remade

Posted on by Jari Silver

In June 1914, the people of Helsinki had reason to be proud. A new, grand, two-storey indoor market hall, praised as Europe’s largest and most modern, opened at the Hakaniemi square. Now, over a hundred years later, the venerable marketplace is undergoing the most thorough renovation of its history.

Hakaniemi Hall is one of the most massive renovation projects Stara (the City of Helsinki Construction Services) has ever undertaken. The building is protected, so the exteriors must remain unchanged, but on the inside, practically everything has been torn down. The building is now held together by metal buttresses reaching all the way up to the ceiling.

The project began with ground cleaning and reinforcement, as the land under the hall was found to be heavily contaminated. The old load-bearing wooden piles also proved to have weakened over time. They will be cut off and replaced with new metal piles.

In addition to renovation work, the project includes excavations for an underground connection to the Hakaniemi metro station and to a service yard. The sheet piling work required for the 5–10 metre deep interconnections is carried out by Fingeo Oy.

“In addition to sheet piling, we have driven individual piles in the hall to support the old structures,” says driller Arli Kolamets, Fingeo. Arli operates a DTH drill rig, with wear parts supplied by Robit.

“Robit delivers our drill bits, pilots, DTH hammers, ring bits and adapters, among others. Deliveries are really smooth and the products arrive at the site quickly. Robit’s technical support is also exemplary. I have been given advice on e.g. pile penetration rates and hammer air pressure. The workday often stretches far into the evening and it is great that Robit always picks up the phone. My special thanks to Sami Paavola for his competence and customer service attitude”, Arli says.

The sheet piling will be completed during summer 2019. A lot of work, however, remains to be done inside – and underneath – the walls of Hakaniemi Hall before it finally reopens, completely modernized, for business in 2021.

WestConnex: helping to ease future traffic in Sydney

Posted on by Jari Silver

Ever since World War II, the motor car, more than anything, has been the driving force behind urban development in Sydney, Australia’s largest city.

To fight the constant traffic congestion, major investments in infrastructure have been made in the car-dependent city over the last decade. In addition to public transport such as light rail lines and the metro system, these include several motorway projects. WestConnex, the largest of them, has been described as the biggest transport project in Sydney and all of Australia since the Harbour Bridge.

WestConnex, in operation since 2015, is a joint project of the New South Wales and Australian governments. It includes a widening of the M4 Motorway, a new section for the M5 South-West Motorway, and a new bypass of the Sydney central business district connecting the M4 and M5.

The M4–M5 Link Tunnels are the most important stage of WestConnex, providing a vital connection between two of Sydney’s busiest motorways.

Tunneling work, a joint venture between Lendlease, Samsung C&T, and Bouygues (LSBJV), takes place on three separate sites: St Peters Interchange, Haberfield, and Pyrmont Bridge Road.

Drilling began in April 2019. It involves Top Hammer drilling of holes for ground support at all three sites. The supply contract of TH consumables was awarded to Hard Metal Industries (HMI), Robit’s Australian dealer.

“The contract covers the supply of shanks, rods, bits and couplings to LSBJV. Together with HMI we beat off stiff competition from a number of other suppliers”, says Technical Sales Representative Richard Epstein, Robit Australia.

The supply of Robit tools is expected to continue into late 2020. The entire WestConnex project is scheduled to be finished by 2023. Once completed, it will help thousands of motorists by easing congestion on the M4 and the M5, making their daily commute a great deal quicker and safer.

Moving Thailand’s FREIGHT TO RAIL

Posted on by Jari Silver

Moving freight across a large, busy country like Thailand is an expensive business. Thailand’s logistical overhead is around 1.75 trillion baht (€50 billion) per year. To cut this overhead, the Thai government has started an ambitious program aiming to move a large amount of road and air freight to rail.

Thailand has about 4,000 km of rail network, most of which is single track. In order to boost the role of rail – currently carrying only 2 % of Thailand’s freight – the government plan includes doubling large parts of the single-track railroads.

One of the double tracks to be laid in the first phase (2018–2022) is the 120 km stretch on the Northeastern main line from Map Kabao to Thanon Chira Junction in the central part of the country. This involves the excavation of three new tunnels.

Two of the tunnel sites are located in Saraburi province, some 150 km northeast from Bangkok, and one in Nakhon Ratchasima province, 200 km from Bangkok. The main contractor for the work is Right Tunnelling (RT), who Robit have been supplying with rock tools for several years.

Drilling work began in January 2019. “We signed a consignment agreement for the job sites with RT in March. It covers a full set of our tools, including bits, rods, couplings and shanks. Things have run smoothly”, says Yong Woo Jeon, Distributor Business Manager for Robit in the region.

Once completed, Tunnel 1 near Map Kabao – a twin tunnel, 1.4 km each – will be the longest railway tunnel in Thailand. Tunnel 3 at Khlong Phai, Nakhon Ratchasima, will also be a relatively long twin tunnel (1 km each).

Moving a tonne of freight by road costs almost twice as much per kilometre as by rail. The railway project is still in its early stages, but once finished, Thailand can expect huge savings in logistical costs every year.