It is essentially a gigantic ditch, packed with equipment, concrete, rebar and thousands of laborers from many countries. It is a hotbed of construction challenges and a momentous sequel to one of the world’s engineering epics: the original 1914 construction of the Panama Canal. The $3.1-billion third set of locks, the centerpiece of the $5-billion expansion, is taking distinct shape even as an international workforce continues to wrestle with tough materials, geology and logistical issues.
“You can see the progress,” says Gerardo Delrio, construction manager for CH2M Hill, program manager for the Panama Canal Authority (ACP). “We’ve seen the contractors struggling a bit, but they’ve eventually overcome the learning curve.” The “name of the game” for the job is its 100-year design life, he adds.
The bulk excavation will be substantially complete by the end of this year. “Then, the focus will be on the concrete works for another year, followed by electro-mechanical,” says Delrio. The design-build consortium for the locks, Grupo Unidos por El Canal (UPC), is striving to overcome a six-month delay due to concrete mix problems.
As of the end of June, almost 24 million cubic meters of excavation had been completed, with about 9.8 million cu m remaining. The last of four major dredging projects on the Pacific side of the canal is nearing completion, says Jorge Quijano, ACP deputy administrator. That leaves the lock construction as the last remaining major civil job to finish. “From then on, it’s concrete placement. They have to come up with a high production rate to meet the deadlines,” he adds.
UPC would earn up to a $50 million bonus for early completion. “I hope they’ll get it, but it’s not likely,” Quijano says. The consortium faces late penalties of $300,000 per day for a maximum of $54.6 million. After the locks are tested and accepted, Grupo will have a maintenance contract of $40 million for three years. “After that, we’ll assess their job and decide how to proceed,” Quijano says.
The complexity of the job goes far beyond the concrete-mix issues. “Just getting the equipment here and maintaining it is a big issue,” says Greg Ohrn, ACP quality-assurance engineer. “We’re in a country without a lot of [equipment] resources. Everything has to be shipped in.”
Logistics are an ongoing challenge that will continue when the lock chambers—three per side and each about 427 m long, 55 m wide and 18 m deep—are ready to be topped out this fall. “How to get the material down there in a controlled manner, how to compact it, how to get the equipment down there—it’s all about size and logistics,” Ohrn says.
A system of trucks, barges, conveyor belts, stockpiles, crushers and coolers complement two concrete batch plants that operate 24 hours, six days a week. Eight thousand tons of aggregate a day are transported from the Pacific side of the locks to the Atlantic side by barge, then by up to 60 trucks a day, says Giovanna Carrion, spokeswoman for the UPC. A crusher operates at 3,000 tons per hour, and the aggregates, ranging from coarse rock to fine sand, are added to various types of concrete mixes, which are applied to different sections of the locks.
The team installed an on-site quarry-mining operation because not all the basalt reclaimed from existing excavation was up to par, Carrion adds. “We thought the quantity of basalt from excavation of the new locks would be enough for aggregates, but we need about 1.5 million cubic yards from the quarry.”
Each batch plant has 10 dedicated scales to handle the five aggregate types required by the primary concrete specifications, says Alan Krause, president and chief executive officer of MWH Global, the design leader for the consortium.
Concrete is produced at 16 cu m every five minutes from the batch plants. “We’re sampling all the way through the process,” says Ohrn. “If you only had one word to describe this job, it’s ‘concrete.’ “
Global Effort
“The original canal, when built 100 years ago, was classified as one of the wonders of the world,” says Krause. “We have to believe that this project will make the same list at some stage.”
MWH integrated the work of offices from Milan to Buenos Aires to Chicago. Moreoever, MWH is in a joint venture with two partners, Tetra Tech and Iv Groep, a Dutch firm. “When you have up to 400 people, you’re going to have challenges, but I’m very pleased with the collaboration and coordination of the design consortium,” says Krause. “We operate in a salt-and-pepper arrangement where we don’t have one company focusing on one thing. The best people from the three companies are used for the best tasks.”
An initial concern for Hill International, which provides project management oversight for the ACP, “was the ability to effectively communicate with the multilingual participants on the project,” says Frank Giunta, managing director of Hill’s construction claims and consulting group. “While the language of the project is English, we come in contact with people who speak Spanish, Italian, Korean and a host of other languages on a routine basis. However, we quickly learned that the professionals with whom we interact speak English and Spanish across the board.”
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