EMDD Universal – GTL Project Peach

What started as a call to carry out 2nd test cores to establish a depth of a problem piece of foundation, evolved in to some 6 months on site showcasing the repertoire of our concrete removal works.
Working for one of our demolition customers, we were initially asked to attend site to core drill a foundation, which had been discovered as part of the bulk earth works, and was sat directly over a tunnel on the main train line into Birmingham’s New St station, meaning traditional demolition breaking could not be used, due to Network Rail vibration stipulations and monitoring
The first element of works, involved diamond floor sawing, a 300mm thick slab, to allow the contractors to carry out its removal, as part of this visit we were also employed to carry out track sawing to cut back old retaining walls sat over the line of the train tunnel.

As the earthworks progressed after our initial visit to site, more and more hidden structures were exposed, all sat over the sensitive train tunnel and needing our expertise in cutting and reducing to allow removal ahead of the new structure, whilst working to the confines of the vibration stipulations.
The hidden structures once finally exposed were, some 5m high 400mm thick retaining walls, extending to 1m thick at the base to foundation point. Through discussions with our management team and the contractors a combination of diamond wire sawing and concrete bursting was agreed to ensure all the RC concrete, that needed to be removed could be done in such a way as to keep within the Network rail vibration requirements.

Working alongside the earthworks team, the 5m high retaining walls were wire saw cut into 1m sections allowing them to be lifted out from the sensitive site area and broken up for disposal on another part of the site.

As the retaining walls were removed further wire sawing techniques were employed to cut the foundation toe into pieces that could be lifted and broken up, in another area of site.
Once all of the retaining structures had been removed, another foundation structure was exposed, which would require removal for the new works. It was decided given the site constraints that this 17m long 3m wide 2m deep section of concrete would be progressively core drilled and burst out, given its depth and location in relation to the train tunnel.

Once the concrete cutting works for the earthworks had been completed, we were given further works to enable the new structure to tie-in to the retained sections of RC frames at the adjoining boundary’s. Track sawing and brokking was employed to cut back previously broken slab edges to allow new works to tie in as specified by the structural engineers.
Floor sawing and brokking was also carried out to form a new access staircase opening