New Tower. The view from the top of our new tower is great and gets better every couple weeks as a new floor is added. Concrete will have been poured for the west side of the sixth floor of the tower by the time you read this. On Friday workers were finishing installation of “bubble deck” and concrete reinforcing bars in preparation for pouring concrete Monday morning—beginning at 2 am. A concrete pump truck will be in the loading-dock area from 2 am to approximately 2 pm.
Lots more is happening in the basement and sub-basement of the tower. Metal studs are in place for some of the interior walls in the basement. Crushed stone has been spread in the large lecture room and more will be spread in the smaller (250-seat) lecture room this week. Ventilation ductwork continues to be installed. Steam and drain pipes are being cut, moved into place, and connected. Work has begun on the stairs from the sub-basement to ground level on the southwest corner of the tower. Completion of these stairs will eliminate the need for ladders to reach the lower levels, making life easier for workers as well as those chronicling construction.
Crawler Crane in Mills Street. The red crawler crane, with its luffer jib attached, was raised last Monday. The main jib of the crane had to be raised to less than 30° from vertical before the 8000-lb weight that hangs from the lifting cables could be raised from the ground. This large weight is needed to counterbalance the weight of the very long cables that stretch from the back of the base of the crane to the top of the luffer. The taller the crane is, the heavier the weight must be, and this crane is tall! The crane was raised slowly and carefully with checks at each stage, a process that took more than an hour.
Mock-up. Last week we reported on the lab mock-up, which is in our building. This week there is more to report about the exterior mock-up, which is at the east side of parking lot 45, across Mills Street from the Charter-Street power plant. Representative sections of the exterior of our new tower have been constructed and are ready for testing to make certain they are watertight. This entails connecting to a fire hydrant or water truck and spraying the mock-up with high-pressure water. Joints between glass, metal, and concrete will be tested. Testing is expected to be done sometime next week.
Fire Sprinkler Project. Workers were busy on the east side of the seventh floor of Daniels last week. Work on the west side of the seventh floor will begin after a walk-through at 8:30 am on Monday, February 10. To coordinate with ongoing construction on the fourth floor of Daniels and minimize times when research labs cannot be occupied, sprinkler work is planned to move to the west side of the fourth floor next week.
Loading Dock. The loading dock is scheduled to be closed from 2 am through approximately 2 pm on Monday, Feb. 10. There may be brief closures at unpredictable times.
This information is up to date as of Friday afternoon. Email bulletins will be provided as needed.
John Moore and Bob McMahon