Suzhou river traverses the heart of Shanghai and has been a silent witness to the turbulent development of this world city. Along its banks a major new traffic artery – the Beiheng corridor -is quietly being built.

The Beiheng corridor crosses Changning, Putuo, Jing'an, Zhabei, Hongkou and Yangpu district, connecting the cities west with the eastern parts, easing congestion and increasing traffic flow. The total length of the corridor is 19.1km and in encompasses flyovers, elevated highways and tunneled sections. At a quiet bend of the river, preparation work for the corridor is being carried out by Shanghai Jianshi Construction for Shanghai Tunnel Engineering Corporation. The preparation work consists of the reinforcement of the river banks at Hongqiao River Park to ensure the safety of tunnel work that will be carried out later in 2017. For the reinforcement of the river bank 358 number 6 sheet piles were driven into the soil, each section 17.5m in length. The purpose of the sheet pile wall is to provide a second ring of flood protection, and to connect and integrate the new wall to an older existing flood-prevention wall.

To avoid damage to the existing wall, Shanghai Jianshi chose to drive the 750mm wide No. 6 piles with a 28RF resonance free vibratory hammer. The Beiheng corridor crosses some of the most densely built-up areas of Shanghai and to avoid conflict with existing foundations the tunnel sections follow the course of the river, so the new wall construction also had to avoid vibrations to the tunnel digging going on 30 meters below the surface of the river. Vibration free technology is now a well-established method in Shanghai and performed as expected: fast driving times and no impact to the surroundings.

In an interview with the construction site manager Mr. Chen, we learned that they used a 40t mobile crane and ICE28RF hammers in the project. "The soil conditions at this site were silty clay, and proved more difficult than conditions we had worked on at different sites across the city. Nevertheless, the 28RF drove the piles to depth in under ten minutes. The project was completed within three months”. When asked if the construction project had encountered any setbacks and how these had been resolved, Manager Chen replied: "the hoses the connect the hammer to the clamp broke, probably by accidentally bumping the hose fitting during the operation of the hammer, but that was quick to repair”. Mr. Chen has now worked with the hammer on several projects, “the biggest advantage of our ICE hammer is that it doesn’t disturb the residents on either bank or the Suzhou river. This allows us to get on with our job and complete our project within the set time.”

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