The use of heavy equipment such as a 400 ton hydraulic gantry and an overhead concrete girder gantry helped prevent headaches during construction on the heavily travelled Highway 407 corridor.
Roadbuilding
Western Mechanical does some heavy lifting
The use of heavy equipment such as a 400 ton hydraulic gantry and an overhead concrete girder gantry helped prevent headaches during construction on the heavily travelled Highway 407 corridor.
Belor Construction Limited was awarded an $18 million contract to widen bridge footings on the 407 from the 410 to the 427. The project is adding new lanes to help alleviate traffic pressures on the toll highway.
Construction required 7,000 cubic metres of concrete, 1,000 tonnes of steel and 100,000 hours of labour.
To help in the construction, Belor contracted Western Mechanical for the use of its heavy equipment and manpower to install 42 concrete precast/prestessed CPCI 1900 girders over the Credit River in Brampton.
“The gantry system is just a method of erecting girders in tight quarters while maintaining traffic flow, rather than shutting down highways for two or three days to erect beams over the bridge,” said Belor Construction president Merv Smith.
“Having a paved right hand shoulder is the best way to not have an impact on traffic,” said Dale Albers, spokesperson for the 407 ETR.
“When we need to do that type of bridge work, we’re able to shift lanes to the right, so we keep three lanes open during peak periods and we never lose them from the construction.”
“Obviously, when they’re lowering these beams into place, there were times when we closed a lane or two for safety reasons.”
Western Mechanical built the 42 girders in a span of 29 hours, working on one weekend in November. Project manager Dan Eisses said the construction was on the brink of snow on the one day and the Ministry of Transportation said if transport trucks have to use their windshield wipers on full, then they cannot travel. The work stoppage occurred for only the one day.
“Basically it was hydraulically driven and it was on railway tracks on the eastbound and westbound lanes, and the truck drove underneath us, we grabbed the girder from above, and travelled sideways and set it down,” said Eisses.
Western supplied the girder gantry system, but was also required to modify the upper runway along the highway from their earlier span of 36 feet to 80 feet.
The modifications were accomplished by fabricating two new box beams spanning the 80-foot distance.
Western completed a girder every 28 minutes, setting 10 girders on the first day, 17 on the second day and 15 on the final day.
“We wanted to work on the Friday, but I don’t think it could have gone better. Everybody worked well together and we knew what our goal was. We just went to it,” said Eisses.
Western has had the gantry since 1996, but built the system used on the 407 specifically for the 403 project on the Credit River in 2005.
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