Introduction
The Wynard Edge Alliance was formed to construct the infrastructure for the 36th America’s Cup event and to provide a world-class waterfront for the city. To extend the wharf a 63M long barge was brought in to install hundreds of piles, all of which required sleeving and capping to provide berths for the AC36 defenders and challengers bases. Solo was engaged by the Alliance to provide these for parts of the project.
Challenge
To supply sleeves for the piles to a depth of 13M and at 1400mm diameter presented several challenges:
- Pipes could not be sourced locally in New Zealand in this diameter
- Imported pipes were restricted to 11.8M lengths
- Relatively thin-walled pipes (SDR41), presented handling, reversion and welding challenges
- Normally pipes are buried so appearance is not important but because these pipes were in prominent positions in public spaces they had to be handled carefully to avoid scratching and marking
- The pipes needed to be installed from the piling barge, a very expensive piece of equipment so any delay meant potential extra hire costs for the Alliance.
The Solution
Solo brought all the pipes to its factory and using one of it’s 1600 diameter welding machines added the extra section to each pipe to get to the required length. Temperature was monitored and retaining rings used to maintain the same diameter and pipes were wrapped with recycled carpets when being moved to avoid marking them. A careful, staged delivery program was worked out, to ensure there was always at least two pipes on-site, ready to install. Once installed, Solo supplied the cone shaped caps to finish the project off.
