BANDRAWORLI SEALINK, MUMBAI 1.

ABSTRACT:
The Bandra-Worli Sea Link (BWSL) is a civil engineering marvel spanning an arc of the Mumbai coastline. With its cable-stayed towers soaring gracefully skywards, the sea link is a reflection of the modern infrastructure that Mumbai is adding in its progress towards becoming a world-class city. The BWSL project is a part of the Western Freeway Sea Project, which, in turn, is a part of a larger proposal to upgrade the road transportation network of greater Mumbai. In the first phase it will connect Bandra to Worli whereas in the subsequent phases the plans are to take it further to Haji Ali and then to Nariman Point. It is a connecting bridge linking the city of Mumbai with its western suburbs and has the potential to bring about permanent and far reaching changes in the travel patterns of the area. The Bandra-Worli Sea Link is primarily meant to provide an alternative to the Mahim Causeway route that is presently the only connection between South Mumbai and the Western and Central suburbs. BWSL reduces travel time between Bandra and Worli from 4560 minutes during peak hours to 7 minutes. The project has been commissioned by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Ltd (MSRDC) and the Maharashtra Government and is being built by HCC (Hindustan Construction Company). As a builder of landmark infrastructure projects around the country, HCC has handled numerous challenges both in terms of location and technology.

2. INTRODUCTION:
The construction methodology, materials and elements used by HCC in the Rs. 1600 crore BWSL, the first open sea bridge in India are presented in this report.Its salient features are: 1.It is the first bridge in India across the open sea, having length 5.86 km. & twin, 4-lane independent carriageway.[3] 2.ItsConstruction begin on 1.10. 2000 & opened to public on 24.3. 2010. 3.16-lane toll plaza with 20-m wide promenade together with state-of-the-art traffic monitoring, surveillance, information and control systems 4. 40,000 MT of reinforcement, 23,0000 cum of concrete, 5,400 MT of Post tensioning strands and bars used. 5. Osterberg cell technology used for the first time in India to check pile strength (for up to 9600MT). 6.Engagement of Asian Hercules, one of the largest floating shear leg crane in the world for shifting 1,260 MT launching truss from Bandra end to Worli end of the main cable stay bridge.

7. Up to 25-m high pier in open sea, giving ample headroom to marine traffic. 8.Use of Polytron Disc in bearings on piers for the first time in India. 9. 2342 pre-cast segments for total bridge with varied width.

Project overview The project has been divided into five construction packages :Package I: Construction of flyover over Love Grove junction at Worli Package II: Construction of cloverleaf interchange at Mahim intersection Package III: Construction of solid approach road from the Mahim intersection up to the start of the Toll Plaza on the Bandra side and a public promenade Package IV: Construction of Cable-Stayed Bridges together with viaduct approaches extending from Worli up to the Toll Plaza at Bandra end, Intelligent Bridge System (IBS). Package V: Improvement to Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan Road Package IV is the largest and main phase of Bandra-Worli Sea Link Project.

2.DETAILS OF PACKAGE IVMAIN BRIDGE STRUCTURE

The bridge consists of twin continuous concrete box girder bridge sections for traffic in each direction. Each bridge section, except at the cable-stayed portion, is supported on piers typically spaced at 50 meters. Each section is meant for four lanes of traffic, complete with concrete barriers and service side-walks on one side. The bridge alignment is defined with vertical and horizontal curves. The scope of work in Package IV is from start of Toll Plaza in Bandra to Worli end point of Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan Road comprising the following: 449m long embankment with 20m wide promenades for 16-lane toll plaza 800m long Precast Segmental Approach Bridge on Bandra side -Type of super-structure : Triple Cell Precast Box Girders -No. of lanes : 8 lanes (4-lanes per carriageway) -Type of deck girder : RCC Box Girder -Width of deck girder : 18.10m -No. of spans & individual span lengths : 17 spans & 50m -Methodology of construction: span by span segmental construction 600m long Cable Stayed Bridge with 125m high Towers including transition spans -Type of super-structure : Triple Cell Precast Box Girders -No. of lanes : 8 lanes (4-lanes per carriageway) -Type of deck girder : RCC Box Girder -Width of deck girder : 22.70m -No. of spans & individual span lengths: 1 span 600m -Methodology of construction : Balanced Cantilever Construction

 200m long Precast Segmental Approach Bridge between Bandra & Worli Cable Stayed Bridge -Type of super-structure : Triple Cell Precast Box Girders -No. of lanes : 8 lanes (4-lanes per carriageway) -Type of deck girder : RCC Box Girder -Width of deck girder : 18.10m -No. of spans & individual span lengths : 4 spans & 50m -Methodology of construction : span by span segmental construction 350m long Cable Stayed Bridge on Worli Side with Pylons including transition spans -Type of super-structure : Triple Cell Precast Box Girders -No. of lanes : 8 lanes (4-lanes per carriageway) -Type of deck girder : RCC Box Girder -Width of deck girder : 22.70m -No. of spans & individual span lengths:1span 350 m -Methodology of construction: Balanced Cantilever Construction 1400m long Precast Segmental Approach Bridge on Worli Side -Type of super-structure : Triple Cell Precast Box Girders -No. of lanes : 8 lanes (4-lanes per carriageway) -Type of deck girder : RCC Box Girder -Width of deck girder : 18.10m -No. of spans & individual span lengths : 28 spans & 50m -Methodology of construction : span by span segmental construction 811 m long link bridge to KAGK road comprising 510m Precast Segmental Bridge and 301m Cast-in-Situ Bridge -Type of super-structure: -No. of lanes : 4 lanes (2 lanes per carriageway) -Type of deck girder: Twin celled RCC Box Girder -Width of deck girder: 18.10m -No. of spans & individual span lengths

3.MARINE WORKSFOUNDATION AND SUBSTRUCTURE

The foundations for the BWSL project consist of 2000-mm diameter piles numbering 120 for the cable-stayed bridges and 1500-mm diameter piles numbering 484 for the approach bridges. The projects site geology consists of basalts, volcanic tuffs and breccias with some intertrappean deposits. These are overlain by completely weathered rocks and residual soil. The strength of these rocks range from extremely weak to extremely strong and their conditions range from highly weathered and fractured, to fresh, massive and intact. The weathered rock beds are further overlain by transported soil, calcareous sandstone and thin bed of coarse grained conglomerate. The top of these strata are overlain by marine soil layer

up to 9m thick consisting of dark brown clayey silt with some fine sand overlying weathered, dark brown basaltic boulders embedded in the silt.The working load on the approach piles ranges from 700 tons to 1500 tons whereas for the piles below the cable-stayed bridge working load is 2500 tons. Test using the Osterberg load cell method The O-cell is a hydraulically driven, high capacity, sacrificial loading device installed within the foundation unit. Working in two directions, upward against side-shear and downward against end-bearing, the O-cell automatically separates the resistance parameters. By virtue of its installation within the foundation member, the Osterberg Cell load test is not restricted by overhead structural beams and tie-down piles. Instead, the O-Cell derives all reaction from the soil and/or rock system. End bearing provides reaction for the skin friction portion of the O-Cell load test, and skin friction provides reaction for the end bearing portion of the test. Load testing with the O-Cell continues until one of three things occurs: ultimate skin friction capacity is reached, ultimate end bearing capacity is reached, or the maximum O-cell capacity is reached.EachOsterberg Cell is specially instrumented to allow for direct measurement of the end bearing and skin friction. O-Cells range in capacities from 0.7 MN to 27 MN. For several locations, cofferdam construction using steel liner and sheet piles, was not possible due to very hard and uneven strata. Here the problem was solved using circular steel caissons. These caissons were fabricated outside and towed to location using A-frame barge. The caissons were sunk at the location using counterweights. The unevenness at the bottom was sealed using the gabion method. Thebenefit of this method was that it completely eliminated deployment of resources like Jack up Platform, Crane, Vibrohammer, Compressor, etc for liner pitching. It also eliminated substantial amount of field works and is pre-fabricated in principle.

Sunking of caissonOsterberg load cell method

4.SUPERSTRUCTURE OF THE BRIDGE

The Concrete Grade for the superstructure is M60. The average weight of the span is 1800 tons, whereas the heaviest span in the bridge (to be erected with the Launching Gantry) weighs 2000 tons.The erection gantry is 1260MT truss designed to erect spans for the above configuration. The unique feature of the truss indeed is the maximum span weight it can handle and that it can launch the pier and EJ segment itself. The truss also has the capacity to align the total span in hanging condition after the gluing is completed. The truss is fully mechanized for self-launching and aligning. An individual segment can be aligned on the truss using a set of four hydraulic jacks mounted on each suspension frame. In order to eliminate the casting or erection errors within a span, two wet joints are provided on either end of the span. The wet joints are cast after finalization of the span alignment. The method used for erection of segments at Cable-Stayed bridge was balance cantilever construction method. During construction, the length of free cantilever for Bandra CableStayed bridge was 215m and for Worli Cable-Stayed bridge it was 73m. The segments were lifted by the instrument named Derrick which was fixed on both ends of the pier table segment and then forwarded. Lifting operation was done simultaneously on both ends. At a time, Derrick can lift one segment. Deck is constructed of alternate stay and non stay segments joined to pier table segments. A Typical 50m span of the approach bridges comprises 15 field segments, a Pier segment and 200mm (nominal) in-situ wet joints. During the span construction, all field segments are suspended from the Gantry, glued and temporarily stressed together. Once the gluing operation is completed, span alignment to the Piers is followed. After alignment, the wet joints are cast including grouting of bearings top plinth. Once the wet joints achieve the required strength, stressing of longitudinal PT is commenced followed by load transfer of Span to Piers. The superstructure comprises twin precast concrete box girders with a fish belly cross sectional shape, identical to the approaches. A typical Pre-Cast segment length is 3.0 metres with the heaviest superstructure segment approaching 140 tonnes. Balanced cantilever construction is used for erecting the cable supported superstructure as compared to span-byspan construction for the approaches. For every second segment, cable anchorages are provided. Relocation of Launching Trusses using 1600MT capacity Barge Mounted Crane Asian Hercules After the successful erection of the deck on Bandra side, the trusses were required to be shifted across the Bandra cable stay bridge by 600 meters to Worli side to take up the spansbeyond the Bandra Cable Stay.Various options like (i) dismantling of the trusses at present locations and reassembling them at new locations, (ii) lowering the trusses on a suitable floating craft and shifting and erecting them, and (iii) shifting the total truss using a floating crane, etc were analyzed in detail.

Launching of segments by Gantry

5.CABLE STAY BRIDGES

It is for the first time that cable stay bridges have been attempted on open seas in India. Coupled with the fact that the aesthetically designed pylons have an extremely complex geometry and one of the longest spans for concrete deck, the challenges encountered were indeed formidable.The salient characteristics of the pylon tower that make it complex and challenging from the point of view of constructability are as follows: (a) The section decreases gradually with height; (b) There are horizontal grooves at every 3m height and vertical grooves for circular portion that requires special form liners as well as it requires attention for deshuttering; (c) The tower legs are inclined in two directions, which creates complexities in alignment and climbing of soldiers; (d) Construction joints permitted only at 3m level. Inserts were permitted only in horizontal grooves provided at 3m height. On not being able to get immediate solution from reputed worldwide formwork manufacturers, the project design team designed an automatic climbing shutter formwork system, which was fabricated on site and employed to execute all tower leg lifts below deck level. To affect further reduction in time cycles, HCC approached Doka, Austria. Doka then devised a customized solution based on their SKE-100 automatic climbing shutter system. The cable-stayed portion of the Bandra channel is 600 metres (2,000 ft) in length between expansion joints and consists of two 250-metre cable supported main spans flanked by 50 metres conventional approach spans. A centre tower, with an overall height of 128 metres above pile cap level, supports the superstructure by means of four planes of cable stay in a semi-harp arrangement. Cable spacing is 6.0 metres along the bridge deck.

The cable-stayed portion of the Worli channel is 350 metres (1,150 ft) in length between expansion joints and consists of one 150 metres cable supported main span flanked on each side by two 50 metres conventional approach spans. A centre tower, with an overall height of 55 metres, supports the superstructure above the pile cap level by means of four planes of cable stay in a semi-harp arrangement. Cable spacing here is also 6.0 metres along the bridge deck. Stay Cables used are Parallel Wire Stay Cables. They were manufactured by Shanghai Pujiang Cable Co. Ltd China. Each cable consists of a group of different number of steel wires. Each wire is made up of high tensile steel. Diameter of single wire was 7mm with a breaking limit of 6.28 Tones. Six different sizes of cables were used in the cable-stayed portion. The difference between them was only on the basis of number of steel wires in each cable. Six different types used were of 61, 73, 85, 91, 109 and 121 steel wires. Group of these wires was packed in two layers of HDPE (High Density Poly Ethylene) material to protect them from atmospheric effects.[3] When all the segments and cables were erected, the segments were post tensioned longitudinally. This post tensioning was done by stressing the steel tendons placed in the ducts provided inside the body of segments. This helps the members to stay together and to increase their load carrying capacity as a large number of segments were joined together to make single unit. Once the stressing was done as per requirement, these holes or ducts were filled with cement grout and were plugged at both ends. After completion of closure pour and post-tensioning of the deck, fine tuning of stay cables is done. Fine tuning is fine force adjustments of the stay cables to achieve the required stresses in the deck and profile of the deck. During fine tuning, forces in the stay cables are adjusted to suit further addition of superimposed dead loads such as wearing coat, crash barriers, handrails and also vehicle loads.During fine tuning operation, longitudinal and transverse deck profiles are also monitored to provide smooth curve. A total of 264 cable stays are used at Bandra channel with cable lengths varying from approximately 85 metres minimum to nearly 250 metres maximum. The tower is cast in-situ reinforced concrete using the climbing form method of construction. The overall tower configuration is an inverted "Y" shape with the inclined legs oriented along the axis of the bridge. Tower cable anchorage recesses are achieved by use of formed pockets and transverse and longitudinal bar post-tensioning is provided in the tower head to resist local cable forces. A total of 160 cable stays are used at Worli channel with cable lengths varying from approximately 30 metres minimum to nearly 80 metres maximum. Like the Bandra channel, the tower here is also cast in-situ reinforced concrete using the climbing form method of construction but the overall tower configuration is "I" shape with the inclined legs. Similarly, tower cable anchorage recesses are achieved by use of formed pockets.The foundations for the main tower comprise 2 metre-drilled shafts of 25 metres length each. Cofferdam and tremie seal construction have been used to construct the six metre deep foundation in the dry.

Schematic view of completed pylon

6.BRIDGE MANAGEMENT
Toll collection The Bandra end of the toll plaza has 16 approach lanes. The toll plaza is equipped with an electronic toll collection system. At both ends, the toll collection options include: 1.Automatic electronic payment system through On-board Units mounted on vehicles for frequent-commuters that enable vehicles to pass without stopping. 2.Semi-automatic cash-less electronic payment via a smart card in unattended lanes. 3.Manual toll collection for payment by cash, to a toll attendant. Monitoring An intelligent bridge management system (IBS) provides traffic information, surveillance, monitoring and control systems. It comprises of CCTVs, automatic traffic counters and vehicle classification system, variable message signs, remote weather information system and emergency telephones. The control centre is located near the toll plaza along with the electronic tolling controls. The control system uses fibre-optic cables running the entire span of the BWSL. The toll management system and advanced traffic management system was installed by Efkon India. For traffic enforcement, the bridge includes facilities for vehicles to pull over when stopped by enforcement officers or in the event of a breakdown.

Security The bridge uses mobile explosive scanners for vehicles traveling on the sea link. Scans take less than 20 seconds for each vehicle with sensors above and below the vehicles. Over 180 cars can be scanned per hour by each scanner. The pillars and the towers supporting the bridge are protected by buoys designed to withstand explosions and collisions. These inflated buoys surround each pillar of the sea link to avoid any damage. The bridge tower and the control centres feature lightning protection, designed to protect the bridge monitoring, communication and power equipment from possible surges. Power supply & lighting The bridge has a reliable and redundant power supply, backed up by diesel generatorsand auto mains failure panels for critical loads, such as monitoring, surveillance, emergency equipment and communication services including aviation and obstruction indicators. BWSL exclusively uses energy saving illumination systems.

Working during monsoon The Maritime Board does not allow marine traffic in monsoon season. Thus, work was halted mid-May only to re-commence in October, effectively reducing the work schedule to only seven months in a year. To overcome this hurdle and to use this time to speed up the construction activities at Bandra Pylon, HCC put forth the solution in the form of an innovatively designed temporary bridge. This bridge had a total length of 325 metres. It had the facility of a walkway, a concrete pipe line, an electrically-operated trolley mounted on rail, water line and a pipe line. It paved the way for successful continuation of work during the monsoon season when the sea was rough and the winds were strong Psychological conditioning With a long track record and experienced in building large infrastructure projects, HCC follows strict guidelines for occupational health and safety and environment protection. Safety is extremely important to HCC and the company officials worked towards sensitising labour and creating greater awareness of safety standards with gentle persuasion, consistent motivation and tool box meetings. The kind of structured processes that were implemented by HCC for ensuring safety is nothing short of phenomenal.[1] Lack of awareness is the biggest hazard for safety. Since the primary safety hazard are related to engineering control, equipment, job methodology, material handling, structural fabrication and emergency preparedness.For its meticulous planning and implementation of safety practices for the BWSL project, HCC has won the prestigious Golden Peacock Award for safety, health and environment in June 2007.

7. REFERENCES
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Freeway_(Mumbai)( Accessed on 2.11.11) 2.http://mycoordinates.org/making-of-bandra-worli-sea-link/all/1/(Accessed on 2.11.11) 3.http://sea-link.blogspot.com/( Accessed on 2.11.11) 4.http://mumbaimatters.bombayaddict.com/2007/05/bandra-worli-sealink-some-photos.html( Accessed on 1.11.11) 5.http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_hi-tech-scanners-on-bandra-worli-sea-link-byyear-end_1415643( Accessed on 4.11.11) 6.http://www.hvfacprojectindia.com/resources/Fact%20Sheets/BWSL290705.pdf 7.http://www.livedarshan.com/livedarshan/en/pdf/HCC.pdf 8.http://www.citehr.com/attachments/53806-bandra-worli-sea-link-bandra_worli_sealink.pps