Equipment At Work

Riding on an unprecedented infrastructure and real estate boom, construction equipment continues to electrify the Indian market. Apart from the must-haves in any equipment fleet, every sector – bridges, high-rises, ports, power plants, mining, sewage treatment plants, tunnels – demand critical equipment key to its needs. Jayanthi Narayan speaks to some of India's top contractors operating in these sectors to find out exactly what that equipment is; how it enables their top-drawer projects; and challenges of availability and deployment. Bridges Shankar Srivastava, Vice President - Equipment - HCC Ltd Projects: We have handled q...uite a few bridge projects, Bandra-Worli Sea Link (BWSL) being the chief one. We have handled all types of bridges, including very small bridges and major road and rail over-bridges. The bridge at Lucknow was another major road over-bridge project handled by us. Equipment for bridge projects: For foundation equipment, we use cranes, piling rigs and concreting equipment and for the span, we use either a crane for lifting the span or a launching girder depending on the design. Once the planning is complete, we do the concreting, which is standard concrete, and then we get to the road building part, which is the asphalting. Here, we use pavers.Equipment essential for a sea bridge: Jack-up platforms with different facilities are important. We have 200-500 tonne jack-up platforms that we jack up in the sea; then we transfer our crane and concreting equipment onto these platforms. As the sea is all around, you need a solid place from where you can work and construct. The platforms need to be equipped differently according to the functions that are designed. Similarly, there is something known as reverse circulation drilling equipment (RCD). When you are making a pile, you need to bring the cut chips out of the pile. With this equipment, we use a casing, inside which is the cutter with a space. We pressurise the casing with water. The water will pressurise whatever chips the cutter is cutting through the centre of the crusher and cut them out of the hole. We then bring it to the land level and discharge them. We have used launching trusses of 1,200 tonne capacity. When you make piers, from pier to pier we have to span each section with segments. Other equipment includes tower cranes, moulding equipment, gantry cranes and a lot of other associate equipment including road-building equipment. Important features sought: Primarily, it is rated capacity. For sea bridges, marine certifications are mandatory, as one has to work in sea water. Jack-up barges are all marine certified by IRS. Second, the quality of the equipment should be such that it should not rust very easily and it should be painted properly. Critical equipment: The quality of the bridge project depends on its design and the formwork used. Other equipment remains the same but if the formwork system is not good, there will be quality issues. That is why we used Doka for BWSL. The formwork gives a plastered finish. Improving project timeline: In case of BWSL, one piece of equipment that substantially changed the timeline of the project was the Asian Hercules floating crane of 1,600 tonne capacity with 'A' frame. One of our launching trusses was on the Bandra end and it weighed about 1,200 tonne. If we had to dismantle that truss and take it to the Worli end and reassemble it, it would have taken us about a year. We did that job in three days by using this crane, which we brought from Singapore. This was one of the biggest achievements of the project. Trends: Equipment players should be looking at how effectively they can utilise their fleet. The industry is booming and equipment is the heart and soul of construction today. Ports Dr PV Chandramohan, President - Technical, Navayuga Engineering Co Ltd Cashing in on boom time: One particular feature of this boom is that all port projects are now coming up on a BOT basis. So, it is a matter of investment also. But thanks to the economic growth in our country and the liberal policies in the financial sector, raising funds has become less cumbersome.Projects: We have on hand the ports at Krishnapatnam (which is already commissioned), Vodarevu, Machilipatnam (all in Andhra Pradesh) and Astaranga in Orissa. Equipment for port projects: Most of the work done in a port is underground. The most important equipment is the piling rig. Nowadays, companies invariably go in for hydraulic rotary drilling rigs. The next on the list is the trench cutter for diaphragm walls. To supply concrete for the above equipment, batching plants and transit mixers are also important. Earthmovers play a key role in levelling up the low-lying port area. These are land-based construction operations. On the harbour side, dredgers are very important.Important features sought: Port construction machinery has to work in severe conditions. Any breakdown will upset the timeframe and other synchronised activities. Ruggedness and sturdiness are two very important qualities. Improving project timeline: Reliability is an important factor for selection of equipment for a particular operation. Many activities are interconnected. If one equipment fails to perform, it affects many activities. In the present construction scenario, time overrun is not tolerated. In the case of Krishnapatnam port, berths were by and large retaining structures. The most important equipment in such a case is the trench cutter for the diaphragm wall. There is a saying: 'It is not the machines that matter but the men behind them.' Krishnapatnam was a fast-track project completed ahead of schedule. Trends: Here we have a problem. We can design and build any port structure in India without external help. But we import all equipment from overseas. To a certain extent, this is true with other machinery as well. Something should be done to promote production of construction equipment indigenously. High-Rises BC Desai, Chief Engineer - Plant & Equipment, BE Billimoria & Co Ltd Projects: We have been involved with various high-rise projects in Mumbai including Planet Godrej, Byculla; Ashok Towers, Lalbaugh; and Lodha Bellissimo, Lower Parel. Equipment for high-rise buildings: The main equipment for building a high-rise is high pressure concrete pumps and climbing cranes. Other equipment that is an essential part of the construction site inventory includes standard front-end loaders; standard front-end loaders with backhoe attachment (a popular brand is Escorts JEB 3D; we also have brands like Tata JD315v); and skid-steer loaders (brands popularly used are AS BOB CAT, Terex Heman 175). While standard front-end loaders with backhoe attachment are used for loading excavated earth and debris into trucks or dumpers or clearing the site, loaders with backhoe attachment make the job easier as well as helping in miscellaneous operations, like trenching, as they can excavate as well as load the material. Meanwhile, skid-steer loaders have a special feature of maneuvering that makes them very useful in restricted places like narrow trenches and tunnels for loading loose material. Important features sought: Reliability is the most important aspect we look for.Critical equipment: Concrete vibrators and concrete pumps are critical for high-rise construction.Trends: The industry in India is trying to cope up with the need for high-rise equipment. Mining Russell Waugh, Managing Director, Leighton Contractors India Pvt Ltd Cashing in on boom time: We mine a variety of materials including coal, iron ore and bauxite in locations that include Australia, Indonesia and Mongolia. As the government has developed its plans for the mining sector, and opened up mining leases to developers, there has been strong recognition for the skills and expertise that Leighton brings. It is early days for contract mining in this sector, and particularly the type of large-scale modern mining that India needs for its coal and power demands.Equipment for mining projects: Leighton's core fleet of mining equipment is all diesel-powered and consists of hydraulic excavator and shovels, mechanical drive trucks, down-the-hole hammer drill blast hole rigs, track-type dozers, motor graders and general support equipment. We use brands like Caterpillar, Komatsu, Hitachi, Liebherr, Bucyrus/O&K, all dependent on the after-sales support for the country and area where we are working.Important features sought: Reliability, maintenance cost and fuel consumption are all key considerations in selecting large-scale mining equipment.Critical equipment: Every mine needs a well-thought-out mine plan, and mining equipment needs to be selected to match with it. The right selection will give maximum production efficiency and overall minimum cost. Improving project timeline: We always select the equipment to suit the project and that is part of our expertise. Whether the jobs are offshore, mining or building, we carefully select plan and equipment to improve project efficiencies and timeframes. We own much of our own equipment from specialist tunnelling machines to road paving equipment and offshore pipe-laying equipment. Loa Raya in Indonesia was a good example of how we selected the correct equipment for the project. It was hard rock, no drill and blast, and we had to rip it all and the project went very well. Trends: The industry in India in terms of modernity and large-scale mining is in its infancy. The use of large-scale equipment remains limited in till the present but increasing scale is essential to develop mines to produce the tonnages needed for power generation and industry. The levels of production sought in recent tenders are not possible without larger-scale equipment and very efficient logistical management using the latest GPS tracking system and production monitoring and controls. Power Plants DV Ramana Rao, Vice-President & Head - Thermal Power Plant Construction BU, Larsen & Toubro Ltd Projects: With over five decades of experience in power plant construction and increased private-sector participation in thermal in the recent past, going forward we see our role in construction will be bigger and bigger. We are presently executing power plants across India: two 500-mw units in Koderma, two more units in Maithon, and two 600-mw units in Orissa for Sterlite. We are also executing India's first super-critical three units of 660 mw in Sipat for NTPC and recently completed a 2×250 mw power plant in Bhilai. In the south, we are executing the Vemagiri 2×388 mw combined cycle power plant and have been awarded the 800-mw Gautami power plant and two units of 800 mw in Krishnapatnam. In the west and north, we are executing four units of 135 mw in Warora near Nagpur and eight units of 135 mw in Barmer, Rajasthan, and five 600-mw super-critical units in Mundra, two units of 700 mw in Rajasthan and two units of 660 mw in Talwandi Sabo; 2×700 mw in Sidhi, Madhya Pradesh; three units of 660 mw in Koradi; and six units of 150 mw in Mahan. In other words, we are associated with construction of 18,000 mw in India, 60 per cent of which may be commissioned in the 11th Plan.Equipment for power plants: For civil work construction, the main equipment includes batching plant, transit mixers, excavators and concrete pumps. For mechanical erection work, we use cranes ranging from 10/12 up to 750 tonne capacity. Depending on the specific boiler design, requi-rement of high-capacity cranes of 200 tonne and above is determined. The weights and heights to which the materials have to be hoisted will determine the capacity and configuration of cranes to be used. Additionally, we provide strand jacks, passenger hoists and sky climbers for hoisting men, large number of winches and welding equipment in the construction. For special structures like cooling tower and chimney, we use specialised formwork systems like slip form and automatic climbing form. For NDCT, we also use tower cranes of 150-160 m height and passenger hoists that will move along with the profile of the concrete shell. In case of steel flue chimneys, we use a computerised strand jack system in an innovative way for all the heavy lift erection inside the chimney.Important features sought: Most high-capacity cranes are very versatile and flexible providing a range of capacities for various applications. Most modern equipment used in power plant construction has built-in safety features. Some heavier cranes require assembling at site as they cannot be transported in one piece. While some smaller equipment used in power plant construction is movable by itself, bigger cranes may require as many as 30-40 trailers to transport them from one site to another.Critical equipment: For civil work, concrete production and handling are critical for the finished product. We use computerised control for batching plant for producing consistent quality of concrete. Transit mixers and boom placers are used to ensure that concrete is quickly placed to ensure quality. Cranes play a major role in erection. Of late, we are maximising the use of strand jack which is safe and versatile for modular erection in a power plant. The cost of deployment of all this equipment is very high in power plant construction. Extended deployment is the main reason for escalation in costs and this happens because of delayed start of the project, local problems, delayed/non-sequential supplies and delay in decisions.Improving project timeline: In a situation where the timeline is slipping owing to delay in release of front and non-sequential supplies, additional and unplanned equipment may be deployed to reduce the delay to some extent.Trends: With regard to civil work, most construction companies own the equipment for deployment at project sites. In case of mechanical erection too, small-capacity cranes are mostly owned by construction companies. Higher-capacity cranes are generally hired from the market; of late, the availability of these cranes is much better. The reliability of this equipment varies from one hirer to the other; most of these high-capacity cranes come from very reliable manufacturers and breakdowns are not common. Any major breakdown would seriously affect the project schedule. Tunnels SL Bhattacharya, Assistant General Manager, ITD Cementation India Ltd Projects: Some projects include DMRC BC-24 metro project: twin-bored tube 4.2-km long, 5.8-m finished diameter; Arphal irrigation tunnel: 16.6-km long 5.5-m diameter at Karhat, Maharashtra, under Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation (MKVDC) by Drilling Blasting Method (DBM) with boomers; Tunnel-2 and Tunnel-3: 4-km long, 9*6.2 sq m cross-sectional area at Udhampur under Northern Railways by drainage reinforcement excavation supporting system (DRESS) and NATM with pipe fore polling method; and Jindolighati road tunnel: 500-m long 11.5-m diameter at Alwar, Rajasthan, under RSBCC by DBM with boomers.Equipment for tunnel projects: We use tunnel boring machine (Herrenknecht India Pvt Ltd - Earth Pressure Balancer Shield - 6.6 m diameter); boomers (281/L2D Atlas Copco; Axera-5/DT-820); battery-operated locomotive (30 tonne); diesel-powered locomotive (27 tonne); stage loader (65-m long); muck car (4/12 cu m); segment car; passenger car; belt conveyor (550-m long); excavators (Ex200, Ex300, Ex110, EX60, EX20, CK93, CK72); robo arm shotcrete machine (26 cu m/hr, SIKA); concrete pump (30/42 cu m/hr, Greaves/Schwing Stetter/Putzmeister); stationary shotcrete machine (6 cu m/hr, Altera/Aliva); scup trums (2 cu m yard, SP2D; 3 cu m, 3.5D); LHD (Emco Elecon); soil make (SM-400) for pipe roofing; drilling rig (LM-100/ROC) for pipe roofing; SDL for mucking; Swellex pump for Swellex rock bolting (Atlas Copco); PU double component pump (BASF); front-end loader (5 cu m, Volvo); gantry crane from 1 to 125 tonne; hydraulic crane of up to 150 tonne; crawler crane (150 tonne); car shifter; Stripp m/c (Tianjin Jaanke Mechanical Works); ventilation fan (Zitron India); air compressor (up to 650 cfm); batching plant (120 cu m); aggregate crusher (three-stage jaw, cone and VSI crusher, 200 tonne); diesel generator up to 1,100 kVa; boom placer (30 cu m); and Alimak raise climber (single and double platform).Important features sought: Past performance of the equipment in related projects; reliability; safety features; cost effectiveness; pollution control measures; life of machine; level of efficiency; optimisation of maintenance; after-sales service facilities; and availability of spares.Critical equipment: Although it depends upon the nature and methodology of tunnelling work, drilling rigs and excavation-oriented equipment are the most critical for the DBM whereas for TBM tunnelling, obviously TBM is the most critical equipment. Overall, each equipment is equally important for tunnelling activities as it is all interlinked in every cycle.Improving project timeline: For the Arphal project, we adopted the mechanised DBM instead of the conventional; this enabled us to complete the entire 17-km project within two years. In Package BC-24 of DMRC we could do 37.5 m of tunnelling per day because of TBM machines. In T-2//T-3 (Northern Railways) tunnelling project, we encountered one buried deposit with highly saturated condition of 650 m stretch where instead of the conventional system, we used a highly mechanised system with pipe fore polling m/c (pipe roofing/PU grouting/double Ribbing).On hiring: We normally hire a few of the equipment like hydraulic and crawler cranes, dumpers, front-end loaders and excavators through the project.Trends: We think the equipment industry in India is not mature enough to fulfil the huge requirement of equipment for existing tunnelling works (hydro, metro, irrigation, road, railways and utilities). We need to organise the manufacturing units of all specified equipment indigenously and improve servicing facilities in remote areas. Sewage Treatment Plants Praveen Remanan, General Manager - Marketing & Business Development, UEM Projects: We have been involved in many sewage treatment plants (STPs) ranging from 1 mld to 180 mld in India and abroad, the most recent one being the 1 mgd STP using membrane bioreactor technology (MBR) for recirculation/reuse of treated effluent for the Commonwealth Games Village near Akshardham Temple, Delhi. Equipment for STPs: The equipment used depends upon the technology used; for instance, MBR, activated sludge process technology (ASP), sequential batch reactor technology (SBR). With reference to the MBR technology used for the Commonwealth project, the main equipment used includes mechanical screens (1mm to 20 mm), pumps, aeration system comprising fine bubble diffuse aeration and blowers, membranes, thickeners, centrifuge for sludge handling, and chlorination system for disinfection.Important features sought: The equipment must be robust and energy-efficient and made with anti-corrosive materials. Critical equipment: The most critical equipment pertaining to this project is the membrane bioreactor. There are 4 MBR tanks with a combined volume of 473 cu m. Each tank is provided with six cassettes of membranes with each cassette of double-decker type consisting of 400 membranes. Each MBR tank houses 2,400 membranes. The cassette is provided with coarse bubble diffusers for passing air required to keep the membranes free from depositions and to maintain aerobic conditions in the MBR tank required for the nitrification of aerated sewage. Trends: The industry is in the evolution stage with many foreign and domestic players getting into this sector. In addition, bodies like the World Bank, ADB, JICA and JNNURM are funding and backing various projects in the country.