Bangkok’s MRT Orange Line is one of the planned rapid transit lines of the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (MRTA). The main purpose of this 39.5-kilometer railway line is to improve the connection between western, central and eastern parts of Bangkok, and consequently ease the Thai capital’s traffic congestion. This project is also part of Thailand’s plan to stimulate the national economy and improve the infrastructure.
The MRT Orange Line is separated into two sections: from Bang Khun Non to Thailand Cultural Centre, and from Thailand Cultural Centre to Min Buri – comprising 22 underground stations and 7 elevated stations.

Dextra GFRP Soft-Eyes for tunnel construction

For the Thailand Cultural Centre – Min Buri section, the contractor Joint-Venture of Italian-Thai Development and CKST opted for more than 40 units of Dextra’s turnkey solution for tunneling FRP Soft-Eye.
Being well-known for its unique cut-ability technology, Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) Soft-eye facilitates break-ins and break-outs of the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM). This is in fact the best alternative to conventional steel reinforcement – which would require mobilization of additional manpower and equipment.

Dextra Sonitec for Crosshole Sonic Logging (CSL) tests

In order to verify the integrity of concrete in deep foundations, Italian-Thai Development, CKST JV and Unique Engineering have also chosen Dextra’s cross-hole sonic logging tubes – Sonitec. These CSL tubes are available in several diameters, and have been specifically designed for easy and fast handling to accelerate construction speed. Over 30,000 tubes have been delivered to the project as of March 2022.

Complete rebar splicing solutions applied for the metro’s D-walls

To optimize the reinforcement of the Diaphragm Walls (D-Walls), Bartec, one of Dextra’s mechanical rebar splicing systems, was installed. Thanks to its easy-to-install characteristic, Bartec helps accelerate the projects schedule and reduce inventory as the standard coupler can also be used for Position splices. More than a million of Bartec couplers have been delivered to the site.

Moreover, around 7,000 headed bars were applied at the end of the reinforcement bar as an alternative to hooks in congested areas of the structure.

For more information about our solutions available in Thailand, please contact our Bangkok office.

High Speed 2 (HS2) is a planned high-speed railway system in the United Kingdom.

Currently under construction, the first phase will connect London to Birmingham, with a total length of 176 kilometers.

This will be the second major high-speed rail line in Britain, after the 108-km High Speed 1 (HS1) line opened in November 2007.

One of the largest construction sites of this project is at Long Itchington Wood, where a 1-mile twin bore tunnel is under construction.

In order to launch the tunnel boring machine (TBM) a one-square-kilometer north portal site have been prepared, requiring a large and deep excavation, with 250,000 cubic meters of material being excavated in layers, before being transported and deposited locally to form environmental embankments for the main line.

The decision of building the tunnel has been taken in order to preserve a section of ancient woodland at Long Itchington Wood.

Dextra has supplied almost 20,000 Griptec standard and position couplers in diameter 12mm to 40mm for the connection of steel rebars in diaphragm walls, pile caps and portals. Griptec connection is made from the connection of one male and one female sleeve, both extruded onto the rebar.

In the first phase of the construction, the female sleeves were installed at the top of the diaphragm wall, and then connected to the male sleeves on L-shaped bars in the roof slab through position assembly, which is the splicing method used when both rebars cannot be rotated, to reinforce the connection to pile caps.

In the third phase, the couplers were used as a crown beam, connecting via lap length to the bent bars of the second phase.

Upon its completion in 2022, this world-class high-speed railway system will drastically improve connectivity across the Midlands and beyond.

Source of images: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6776829261971021824/, https://mediacentre.hs2.org.uk/news/first-reveal-of-hs2s-extensive-long-itchington-wood-tunnel-north-portal-site-in-warwickshire, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCc1sKCeAxA, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfu2AuacPKc

The Cairo Monorail is a two-line monorail rapid transit system in Cairo, Egypt, that is currently under construction. When the project is finished, the two lines will provide the first public transportation linkages from the New Administrative Capital and 6th of October City to the Cairo metropolitan area.

The 54-kilometer line between the New Administrative City and East Cairo will take 60 minutes, while the 42-kilometer line between the 6th of October City and Giza would take 42 minutes.

Dextra supplied more than 300,000 Bartec standard and bridging couplers for the connection of two reinforcement bars. Bartec is simple to install and does not require professional skilled labor, which reduces labor on the job site, formwork costs, and increases job site safety.

Around 400,000 Bartec headed bars were also installed as a replacement for straight or hooked bars in concrete members and connections.

Moreover, the construction site used Unitec bolted couplers in repair works for the connection of two rebars which haven’t been previously prepared (that is, no threads).

The first stage of the system will open to the public in 2022, followed by a second stage in 2023.

The Forrestfield Airport Link is a rail infrastructure project lolcated in Perth, Western Australia. The 8.5-km line will connect the existing Midland Line to Perth International Airport and further to the eastern suburbs. The project features two twin-tunnels bored with Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) which move up to 26 meter underneath the bed of Swan river, highways and Perth Airport, adding three new stations to the city’s transportation network: Belmont, Airport Central and Forrestfield.

For the tunnel boring packages, Dextra supplied a total of 10 GFRP Soft-Eyes between 2016 and 2017 (two for Airport Central Station, two in Abernethy, four in Belmont and two in Bayswater) to the contractor JV of Salini Impregilo and NRW Salini Impregilo. Soft-Eyes are rebar cages made mostly of Glass-Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GRFP) bars and some steel rebar. Soft-Eyes can be cut by the TBMs and allow faster equipment breakthrough, saving precious time while avoiding to damage the TBM heads.

Dextra also supplied a total of 65,000 Griptec connections for the station works. Griptec is distributed in Western Australia by Dextra’s partner InfraBuild Construction Services. They offer the complete service to the contractor: Cutting the rebar, preparing the bar ends with Griptec sleeves and bending them for final installation on site. This allows the contractor to achieve faster cycle times in rebar connection on site .

Sonitec, Dextra’s steel tubes for Crosshole Sonic Logging tests (to check concrete integrity in bored piles) were also supplied.

The Forrestfield-Airport Link will operate in 2022.

For more information about our solutions in Australia, please consult our Bangkok office

The Lucknow Metro project is built to serve growing population of Uttar Pradesh, North India, as well as to serve the areas that are not connected by the existing rail system. The 35-kilometer rail system comprises 22 stations, of which 19 will be elevated.
The first phase of the project consists in construction of 2 rail lines (North- South and East-West corridor), connecting four corners of Lucknow by running through the heart of the city. Being implemented by Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation (LMRC), the Phase 1 comprises the construction of 22.88-kilometer long North-South corridor. The priority section is 8.5 kilometers, linking Transport Nagar to Charbagh.
Once operational, the Lucknow Metro will help ease the traffic in the city, and will also reduce commuters’ travel time.

Brussels Metro is a rapid transit system that serves a large portion of the Brussels, Capital Region of Belgium. It consists of 4 conventional metro lines and 3 pre-metro lines.

Line 3 is tram line that runs through the city center from Churchill in the south to Esplanade in the north, using the North-South Axis tunnel. The total route will be 10.3km long.

An 150m long new tunnel is being dug underneath the Brussels North railway station to connect two existing underground tunnels. It will be an important component of the new metro link.

Dextra supplied Sonitec, a tube solution invented to facilitate the integrity testing of foundations using the CSL testing method, to the construction site of Line 3. 13 kilometers of the tubes were installed in the 18m long pile cages.

Sonitec system have been designed for the sole purpose of facilitating the assembly and installation of long tube lengths in reinforcement cages.

The Cairo Metro is the rapid transit system in Greater Cairo, Egypt. It was the first of three full-fledged metro systems built in Africa, as well as the first in the Arab world. It began service in 1987 as Line 1 between Helwan and Ramsis Square, covering a distance of 29 kilometers.

The Cairo Metro currently has 74 stations, 3 of which are transfer stations, with a total length of 89.4 kilometers as of August 2020. There are three operating lines in the system, numbered from 1 to 3.

The new Line 4 will run from Makram Ebeid Station to Police Academy Station near the Ring Road, with bored tunnels following Doctor Hassan El-Sherif Street and Ahmed El-Zomor Street. It will be 24 kilometers long in total. Construction began in Q3 2019 and is expected to be completed in 2024.

Dextra has supplied 450,000 Bartec+ couplers and 42 GFRP soft-eyes for the reinforcement of the diaphragm walls.

Bartec+ is a mechanical splicing system with parallel threads for connecting concrete reinforcement bars with diameters ranging from 12 to 50 mm (ASTM #4 to #18). Its threaded bar end is tensile tested at 90% of the rebar yield strength.

Dextra’s GFRP soft-eye is an integrated turn-key solution that uses cut-able Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) reinforcement as an alternative to traditional steel rebars, allowing the penetration of Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM) to pass through diaphragm walls with ease.

The 37km-long Light Rail Transit Line 3 (LRT3) is a light rail line under development in Malaysia. It includes a 35km viaduct and a 2km underground tunnel and it will link Bandar Utama with Johan Setia in Klang.

Developed in line with the Greater Kuala Lumpur/Klang Valley (GKL/KV) Land Public Transport Masterplan, LRT3 will play a strategic part in extending rail connectivity to the Western Corridor of GKL/KV.

Dextra provided cuttable Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) soft-eye solutions installed in diaphragm walls of escape shafts, in order to facilitate the underground tunnel breakthrough by Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM).

The LRT3 project is expected to serve 2-million people across the alignment by improving connectivity, alleviating traffic congestion and stimulating economic growth along the Western Corridor of Klang Valley, from Klang to Petaling Jaya.

The construction is scheduled for completion by February 2024.

Panama Metro Line 3 is a 34km-long monorail line being developed as part of the Panama metro project. It will be the largest project in the country since the expansion of the Panama Canal.

The line will establish a connection between the province of Panama Oeste and the province of Panama, reducing the average travel time by half, from 90 minutes to 45 minutes. The monorail system will be the first to use Japanese technology in the Americas.

Dextra supplied 260,000 Bartec couplers for the elevated monorail structure’s piling column and precast beam connection.

Sonitec tubes were also used to examine the structural integrity of concrete using the crosshole sonic logging testing method.

Expected to begin operations in mid-2025, the line will benefit more than 500,000 residents of the Panama Oeste province.

Image credit: Línea 3 del Metro de Panamá YouTube Channel, www.elmetrodepanama.com