SPECIALIST ENGINEERING ASIA (SEA) supervisor Chang Choon Kit, who was involved in constructing the Jepak-Bintulu bridge, shared some insights from his experience.
"Since the bridge was built near the seaside with strong winds, we had to be extremely cautious when hoisting heavy items," he explained. "Additionally, we had to halt work immediately during rain, as climbing the pylons became too dangerous. Both weather and high humidity are the most challenging issues that we had to overcome during the construction of the bridge."
Hailing from Kuala Lumpur, he had to travel often to Bintulu to supervise the workers. "Although we also faced challenges in coordinating with other sub-contractors, the good news is that we were able to complete the job successfully without any incident. Everything went on smoothly!"
Meanwhile, Ir. Jonathan Law from Konsortium Malaysia, which is the C&S consultant for this project, said that there "were numerous challenges throughout the course of the construction of this project."
One of the challenges, he said, was that the cable stayed span segments were 10.4m in length and more than 20m wide. "The travelling form used was more than 200 tonnes in weight," he said. "This proved to be challenging because besides having to support the travelling form, they also had to control the bridge deck levels." However, with the cooperation of China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) Ltd, OVM, Specialist Engineering Asia (SEA) and JKR Sarawak, the team was "able to work out a construction sequence that overcame this challenge by stressing the stay cables in stages throughout the construction n concreting process."
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