grow and improve to be the best heavy lift and heavy transport company.” To that end, he adds, “It is very natural for us to take on challenging projects that are very large in scope or difficult in nature and successfully complete them by employing our ‘Minds Over Matter’ approach to meeting and exceeding our customers’ needs.”
CERTAINLY NOT ‘BORING’ In 2001, the Nisqually earthquake, one of the largest ever recorded in Washington, damaged the then-48-year- old Alaskan Way Viaduct, causing it to droop several dangerous inches. Washington Governor Jay Inslee deemed the comprised tunnel “seismically vulnerable.” Te new two-mile SR 99 tunnel replaces the now-60-
year-old Viaduct, and will be dug directly underneath its sagging predecessor. WSDOT is banking on Bertha, reportedly spending a total of $3.1-billion on the overall project—including an estimated $2 billion on the tunnel itself and another $80 million for the TBM. Constructed by Osaka, Japan-based Hitachi Zosen Corporation, Bertha is owned by Seattle Tunnel
equipment in preparation for handling and reassembling the TBM. Following a two-week, 5,000-mile sea voyage, Te
Fairpartner, the ship bearing Bertha, came into port at Elliot Bay on April 2. Barnhart set to work, offloading the components onto Goldhofer trailers in a 24-line quad-wide configuration. Te quad-wide platform trailer measured 42’ 8” wide by 120’ long, with an additional 14’ of hydraulic drive units on one end. For nine consecutive days and nights, Barnhart’s crews painstakingly transported the TBM components 500 yards from the dock to the launch pit site. To accomplish this feat in a compressed period of time, the company made use of trailers as large as 42’ 8” wide by 90’ long, with an additional 14’ of hydraulic drive units and a Goldhofer with 576 tires in an 18-line quad-wide configuration. Ten, workers meticulously staged all 41 pieces, in correct sequential order, on pipe stands and beams, to be reassembled and lowered into the 80-foot-deep launch pit. “By mid-April, Barnhart had all of the major components
transported to the site and staged,” reports Teague. Te heavy-lifting operations began on April 22, utilizing Barnhart’s Modular Lift Tower (MLT), which
Up close and personal with the SR 99 tunnel boring machine’s cutterhead.
Photos courtesy of Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT)
Partners (STP), the Washington State Department of Transportation’s contractor for the tunnel project. Te machine’s namesake, Bertha Knight Landes,
served as Seattle’s first—and only—female mayor, from 1926 to 1928. In addition to having the world’s largest tunnel boring machine named after her, Landes lays claim to another historic legacy: because Seattle was the first major U.S. city to elect a woman mayor, Landes was also the first woman in the country to hold the office of mayor! So it seems only fitting that the ground-breaking TBM has been christened Bertha in her honor.
GIVING BERTHA A ‘LIFT’ In early March, Barnhart arrived at the tunneling site— ahead of Bertha—to begin assembling and installing its
18 JULY-AUGUST 2013 WIRE ROPE EXCHANGE
WSDOT fondly referred to as “the giant red crane.” At 125 feet tall, and capable of lifting more than 900 tons at a time, the MLT was fitted with strand jacks and the company’s 330t class Demag CC-1800-1 crawler crane. Utilizing a six-leg design, the MLT transferred its loads on a slide track running alongside the launch pit walls to install the TBM components. Te TBM’s collective heft and intricacy necessitated this caliber of heavyweight equipment, especially when it came time to move the all-important 838-ton cutterhead. Barnhart’s strategy for lifting the enormous cutterhead involved connecting two main lifting lugs atop the cutterhead directly to the strand jacks, and linking the two tailing lugs at the bottom to the strand jacks with an intermediate chain of ALRS links. While the team initially
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