Well, I'm new on here.. But i thought you'de all be interested in this job that my pops is doing. His company was contracted to pump concrete into supports at the bottom of each leg on the famous kinzua viaduct bridge. Its historical to say the least. It was originally constructed in 1882. Then it was rebuilt in May, 1900 using steel instead of iron. In 2003 they started to re-structure it again, replacing rivets and what not but a tornado went through and the 100 mph+ winds knocked it over. This bridge held the world record for the tallest train bridge at one time. Now, they are rebuilding whats left on the road side and making a big glass platform so tourists can look down and see what is left of the bridge. Pretty cool that my pops gets to pump it :). Total is 700ft steel line, 50ft rubber hose going down an almost vertical slope. They are using wire guide lines and special clamps to hold it from moving down hill, and they also put a camels hump down towards the bottom to slow the concrete down. All of the pictures are at my website, http://www.kinzuacountry.com/Gallery/index.php?twg_album=Kinzua+Bridge+Project ! I just thought you guys would find this neat to see. He will be using a 36 meter pump to push the concrete right out of the hopper.

wow very cool. can you keep us updated? we need some pictures of you guys with the bridge also. Welcome to ConcretePumping.com glad your hear and thanks for the pic.

I always enjoy things such as this,kinda history buff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinzua_Bridge

Thanks for the shout

guess it wasn't the biggest bridge. Eighth is pretty good too though :). Yeah I will definitely keep everyone updated. I'm actually going to be recording the whole process and then uploading it on my website too. So we can remember it. This isn't the biggest job my pops has done, but it's a scary job to say the least. The foreman said they've had concrete engineers up at the job and they don't know what the concrete is going to do. They couldn't recommend a slump or anything. hehe. Its going to be a grout mix. My pops said he wants it a 4 inch slump, but I think he should go with a 6 inch slump because its going to loose a lot of air when its sliding down the pipe. If its a 4 inch slump, I would think when it travels down and comes out it will reduce to about a 3 or 2. Going to be a giant concrete turd :). And were not too sure about segregation either.. anyone got any ideas? Another thing thats going to be tough is that there is going to be D.E.P., and a bunch of government officials watching over the whole project. When he goes to clean out, they have to collect the water that is pushed through the pipes. This is what is setup for clean up. At the top of the hill they have a 850 Gallon water tank that is going to be fed to the line. Pops is planning on having the whole thing gravity fed. No compressor or anything. He thinks that it will get enough pressure to push it out. Hopefully thats how it works :). At the bottom, they have two 500 gallon tanks to collect the water after the plug comes out so nobody gets fined for anything. The contractor wanted my pops to use air to push the plug through, so he modified a devils catcher that would work, but after seeing all of the line he decided to go with water. If all goes well, then this should be a great project to remember :) Click here for all pictures

I took some pics from your website

Thanks :). I was going to add the images on here, but I figured the link was just as good. I'm lazy. lol

Awesome.
Yeah, use water. But you might need a pump, don't think gravity will pull everything through...

Thx for the input!

do you mean to pump water through after the pour?

Well, at the location there's a water compressor. But the location of the main water tank is up higher than the pipe line, so he figures gravity will flush it. He thinks it will build up pressure as its flushed down. I prefer water over air anyways. It's way safer then air.

the concrete is too heavy it will sit in the bottom of the pipe and allow the water to pass it by leaving a half moon shaped turd in there for next time, your best bet is to pump the water through with your pump maybe put a sponge in the line then pump water low pressure and the velocity of the sponge will be slow enough that you should not have any explosion at the end.

he's gonna have to pump the water to get the line cleaned tell him to wash out quick then put an empty cement bag soacked with water then a ball, then hook back up and pump with water. If he uses just water it will segregate and plug, and if he uses just a ball the water will go past the ball also causing segregation, the wet bag will create a seal and the ball will scrape the inside walls of the pipe. Tell him to make sure they drain the slickline when there done because you don't want any water sitting in there and possibly freezing or washing the cement away on his next prime 

he was planning on flushing it out with a ball. He just was thinking about if gravity would push the ball through the pipes.

Sounds like a great application for a go-devil.  that way there is sure to be separation between the concrete and the water.  If you have your calculations just right, all but maybe a couple 5 gallon pails of concrete can make it into the forms, much less contaminated water to deal with, maybe even pump it back up the hill to the tank for re-use.

Just make sure that the go-devil will make it past the 'camel's hump'.  Use of a 'devil catcher' will make the operation even safer, and easier.  If the catcher were to stop the go-devil before it exited the sytem and a valve was located behind the caught go-devil, then the water could be divereted from that valve to a catch tank and then pumped back up.

Pictures / movies coming soon..... I am sorely disappointed. I will explain: We got one pier filled completely. It actually gained air when it got to the bottom. Everything was going great too. First pier went no problem, then the redimix company JMI decided they wanted to take an hour and a half to get the truck back. The owner of JMI also decided that he wanted the slump at 6inches too. EPIC FAIL. After the grout truck came with the grout, and the second truck was right there with the first truck, my dad had him fill up the hopper, and it looked to be about a 4-5inch slump. Really thick. Almost going over the shoot of the redi-mix. My dad told him he wanted it about an 8 inch slump. Because he thought it would loose about 2-2 1/2iches on the way down. So the guy added 10 gallons of water, and my pops and him both said it looked a lot better. That truck went no problem. Great actually. Wasn't too fast, wasn't too slow. It started coming out the end, and we think there was still grout mixed in it. Well the inspectors said it was too wet. So Jim from JMI said he wanted the next truck a 6inch slump. (CRAZY) From top to bottom it dropped from an 8 to a 6. We spent until 11PM last night blowing out one piece of line at a time. And it was crazy, dangerous, not fun. My body is so sore today. I can barely lift my arms. The concrete set up in EVERY section of pipe. My pops tried pumping slurry into the hopper so that it would break up the concrete a little bit, but it didnt help. He was stroking so hard he almost burnt up his seals in his pump. He tried everything possible to get the line broke loose, and the really bad part was none of the help wanted to help. We said, "WE NEED A FORK LIFT OR SOMETHING TO GRAB THIS LINE AND PULL IT UP SO WE CAN STROKE!!!!" because the line had moved down the hill about 3 inches and there was no way to connect it back up. We ended up getting about 500 feet of the steel blown out.. We had to break every piece off. So basically we blew out 50 pieces of full pipe using a go-devil and air.. digging room for a plug. Yeah that's how hard it was.. and there was still about 200 feet left that was full (20 pieces). The contractor was helping us towards the end of the night, and he said that he will make an auger bit to drill the pipe out and then use an air chizzle and get the rest of it out. Hopefully that's what happens. I've recoreded some video of the truck pulling up onto the job, and pumping the slurry and grout mix. I did not record any of the problems we had though unfortunately just because I was busy running down the whole line looking for where the plug was. If that damn truck wouldn't have taken 1.5 hours to get there there would not have been a problem. AHHHHH.. Its so frustrating. So anyways, they are cleaning the line, and going to have to chizzle what concrete they filled in the second pier. Try again sometime at a later date. The contractor said his guys were going to clean it out and hook it back up. So thats a plus... So Recap. We failed.. Going to crawl into my corner now and suck my thumb rocking forward and backwards. lol If I missed something i'm sorry.. I comments, suggestions. ~ Brandon

Always connect to hard line with rubber off the pump, that way you have some 'wiggle room' to re-connect.  but I think that lesson is well entrenched in you mind now.  Hindsight is 20/20

Gut instinct is also usually right.  At some point in that hour and a half, you mustv'e thought: "Time to wash out".  Trust your gut.  It's no fun to clean out 50 feet of system, let alone 500!  Kudos to you guys for sticking it out!!

There's no excuse for turn-around time that long, especially on a critical line job that long.  Shame on the RM supplier leaving you hanging like that.

I hope you have much better success on the following portions of the job.  Hard lessons learned, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  Now go get 'em!

Well.. the biggest problem was that we could push the concrete down the pipe, but theres a drop going down the hill, so instead of pushing the concrete through the hose it just kept dropping and building up. No push at all. We tried to by-pass the camels hump and run a straight section through, but by that time it was too late. plus, the pipe was not perfectly straight, so there is no way to push hardened straight concrete through pipes. I guess JMI said it was 600 bags of concrete in the second truck. It was stiff I know that.

I don't know if running a rubber line off the end would be a good idea. Thats where the most pressure is going to be. The rubber line would probably blow out first. Its a good idea, but where it blew the clamp apart it was connected to 500 feet of pipe below. So even if it had a rubber line connected somewhere in there it still would have been virtually impossible to connect it back up without a choker or excavator or something of that nature.

I've posted a video (WMV format) onto my website of the beginning of the job. I was too busy breaking lines apart and trying to get unplugged so I ended up not being able to record anything else. You can see that its pitch black when I'm following him back to the shop though at the end. CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO Also.. I've posted a bunch of pictures up on my website as well: CLICK HERE FOR PICTURES

Nice pics and job. Too bad it went crap because of someone not doing their job and others thinking they know best.
Better luck next time and keep those pics coming.