PORTLAND, Oregon -- Amid the grease and grime of Portland's western dockyards, a factory sprang from nothing. Scores of metalworkers began welding rebar cages. Vats of concrete began to churn. The rumbling of a building-sized slurry machine soon filled the air. Bites of rock and dirt 10 feet wide were taken from the earth by the clamshells of giant cranes.

Ripping through the bowels of the Earth is a dangerous endeavor, and the waltz of man and machine was carefully choreographed. Workers ran a gauntlet of cement trucks and cranes. Welding sparks flew while the slippery spoils of digging spilled across the terminal.

Bentonite slurry, a gelatinous blend of clay and water, was pumped into the growing hole to prevent the sides from caving in. A dozen stories’ worth of rebar framework followed, then concrete was pumped in to displace the slurry. It wrapped around the steel cage and then cured. In 10-foot vertical increments teams of workers repeated the process, digging, slotting and filling until a 50-foot diameter cylinder in the ground was forged.

This silo-shaped hole would become Nicolai Shaft, one of many such structures in a $1.4 billion public works program to modernize Portland’s decrepit sewer system. It was November of 2002 and the first of many displays of large-scale construction was underway.

If you would like to read more go to http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2012/02/robots-rebar-and-slurry-inside-a-massive-public-works-project/?pid=1723&pageid=6798&viewall=true

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