Photo Courtesy of Crossrail Ltd. London's huge Crossrail project is pioneer in using system to pay subs faster. Related Links: Prime Minister Announces Supply Chain Finance Scheme Highways Agency Project Bank Accounts Q&A Since the recession, U.K. subcontractors and suppliers have found themselves increasingly squeezed to pay bills while waiting for prime contractors to release project funds.But now "project bank accounts," which the government introduced three years ago to speed and secure payments down the supply chain, are spreading as one of several initiatives to improve liquidity among smaller firms on public-sector projects.By the end of March, the government expects
Photo by Peter Reina for ENR Planned nuke plant relies heavily on 3D, 4D modeling, said Martin Westbury, project director. Related Links: Russia Moving to Expand Global Nuclear Power Market Share China To Build First New U.K. Nuke Plants in More Than 20 Years U.K. Takes Step Toward First Nuclear Powerplant in Two Decades Officials of the European Union are soon to probe the legality of U.K. government guarantees to the private-sector developer of Britain's first nuclear powerplant since the mid-1990s.While the EU investigates whether the guarantees comply with its state aid rules, the French-led developer of the three-reactor, 3,300-MW
NDA Developed since the 1940s, the 4-sq-km complex has been a weapons-making center, the site of the world's first nuclear powerplant, and a fuel-recycling and waste-storage facility. Related Links: British Report Says Sellafield Costs Soaring as Cleanup Lags Facing Tough Competition, URS Lands Huge U.K. Contract U.K.-U.S. Team Picked For $4-Billion Nuclear Waste Cleanup at Scotland Site U.K. officials have slammed the management of the huge U.S.-led cleanup program at the Sellafield nuclear-waste site, located in northwest England, months after it was awarded a five-year contract extension.The consortium, called Nuclear Management Partners Ltd. (NMP), "has failed to provide ... clear
Related Links: Another 'Death Ray' Building Heats Up Reflective Solar Rays Two developers say they will spend several million dollars on the facade of London’s 37-floor “Walkie Talkie” skyscraper to prevent the solar glare that caused scorching damage in the adjacent street last summer (ENR 9/16/13 p. 20).Lightweight, 38-centimeter-long metal fins, or brise soleile, will be fixed to the curved south facade of the building at 20 Fenchurch St. in a six-month operation, subject to planning approval from the local authority. Eight levels of fins are planned for each floor, from No. 3 to No. 34.Solar-glare investigations ordered by the
Photo Courtesy of MMC-Gamuda Variable-density-slurry tunnel-boring machine was developed to dig through fissured limestone. Last month, it broke through on a transit project in Kuala Lumpur. Related Links: Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High-Speed Link Plan Draws Global Interest Dual Purpose Tunnel Becomes Smart Solution A new type of tunnel-boring machine designed to excavate through fissured limestone recently made its global debut with a breakthrough on Kuala Lumpur's emerging mass rapid-transit system. Six new variable-density-slurry tunnel-boring machines (VDTBM) are deployed on the 9.5-kilometer-long twin drives of the Malaysian capital's notoriously difficult karstic ground.With the first VDTBM drives completed this January, the technology "is
Related Links: U.K.'s High Hopes For HS 2.0 The construction of tunnels and stations beneath central London as part of a $24-billion Crossrail project has hit the halfway mark on time and budget. The successes are feeding into ongoing planning for over $60 billion worth of high-speed rail."The industry is enjoying a renaissance and a reputation for delivering these projects on time and cost [to] a very, very high quality," says Andrew Wolstenholme, chief executive officer of Crossrail Ltd. (CRL), the city's project owner. Noting lessons learned on construction for the London Olympics in 2012, the Heathrow airport's Terminal Five
Related Links: U.K. Crossrail Project Hits Halfway Mark With a price tag of around $66 billion, the U.K.'s next high-speed-rail project is pressuring engineers to minimize costs while maintaining quality. As they prepare to procure the $28.1-billion first phase between London and Birmingham, officials are urging the international construction community to bring innovative ideas to the 10-year program.MCNAUGHTON"Here is a stream of work that gives you the incentive to invest in techniques, construction equipment and in skills of people at all levels," says Andrew McNaughton, technical director of High Speed 2 Ltd, the government's project company. "Things like tunneling have
Photo by Getty Images Workers will strip tiles from two curved facades and exposed steel will be painted white until a permanent solution is found. With tiles falling off its shell-like facades, remedial work started recently to safeguard the eight-year-old Queen Sofia Palace of Arts opera house in Valencia, Spain.Crews are stripping loose tiles from the two 4,000-sq-meter curved facades and painting the exposed steel white until a permanent solution is found for the centerpiece of Valencia's City of Arts and Science.The opera house's facades are formed by steel frames covered with metal plate, onto which some 20,000 irregularly shaped,
By Peter Reina Plaster ceiling failure in auditorium of historic Apollo Theatre in London called an isolated incident. Nearly 80 audience members at the 113-year-old Apollo Theatre in London's West End were injured, seven seriously, when part of the ornate plaster ceiling became detached from its supports on the evening of Dec. 19.On first inspection, city officials said the ceiling supporting structure appeared to be sound though detailed investigations had yet to start. The section of falling plaster, reportedly about 2 meters square, demolished parts of the balconies, according to the London Fire Brigade.The ceiling failure was "an isolated incident,"
Related Links: Specifications of UK's BIM Level 2 Mandate Bentley: BIM Also Means Information Mobility Contractors See Gains, Gaps With Growth of Mobility Tools Just a few years ago, "BIM" was just an acronym that meant little to most U.K. construction professionals.Now, building information modeling is the subject of increasingly crowded conferences up and down the country. What made the digital system such a hot topic is a U.K. government mandate saying that, by 2016, collaborative 3D BIM be deployed, with all project and asset information, documentation and data being electronic, on all centrally funded projects of any value.As a
