Works are currently progressing well, although the wind and rain over the last week couple of weeks did hamper contractor efforts at erecting the scaffolding needed to provide access to repair the concrete soffits of the outer carriageway cantilevers. You will see up to four scaffolds that reach out over the edge of the bridge. Weights, or kentledge, in the form of precast concrete blocks located on the carriageway, support a cantilever structural arrangement of scaffold tubes to allow us to access the underside of the deck, without the need for support from the bridge itself. This arrangement helps us to be more flexible in reaching the areas that need repair. The windy weather lost us a few days of work on this element of our works, but in response, Volker Laser will be bringing more scaffold and labour resource to site and we are hoping for good weather as we move into the latter part of April and into May, so that the good progress can be maintained.
All the old kerbs have now been completely removed (4.5km of concrete HB and L kerbs have been taken away for recycling) and all the asphalt has been scraped off the deck. Volker Laser are progressing with the deck preparation, and you will still see the fine milling machines at work as they remove the remnants of the bitumen used as deck waterproofing in the 1960's. More boot prints from the workers in the 1960's have been uncovered and these help connect us to our colleagues from the past! These imprints will be removed when the final deck preparation is undertaken just prior to waterproofing commencing.
The uneven concrete edges that supported the old movement joints continue to be broken out with hydrodemolition techniques and reinstatement follows soon after. The contractor commenced this work at joint 1 in Dundee and is now up to joint 21, and with 42 joint edges to prepare, you will see this work continue for a few weeks yet.