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Structural precasting gets thumbs up in Tuen Mun

By Angela Tam

Competition spurs innovation. Inspired by the development of new building technologies by another
contractor and the accolade won by another developer's project, Hip Hing Construction Co Ltd, the
contracting arm of New World Development, decided to invest in innovation too. The result is a residential A module for the Fu Tei
building in Tuen Mun which has become something of a professional destination for those in the building building being lifted into
industry. place by crane

The 32-storey building occupies a 6,320 sq m site in Fu Tei, near the Lingnan University campus. It was
originally conceived as two towers, one of about 20 storeys and the other ten storeys, but the design was
changed in favour of a single tower when the contractor decided to use structural precasting due to the cost
efficiency that could be achieved through repetition.

According to Hip Hing deputy project manager Eric Chung, the development of the precasting concept The storage yard where
began in 2001 and a design work group consisting of the client, the contractor and all the consultants markings on the ground
started work in early 2002. helped workers locate the
modules to be used next

"Gammon was developing a self-climbing frame a few years ago and we were motivated to develop new
building techniques ourselves," Mr Chung recalled. "We were also inspired by the Swire (Properties) project,
The Orchards, which used a lot of precasting. We have our own precasting factory so it was logical to move
in that direction."

Building on experience
Each bathroom module fell
Hip Hing had completed a number of public as well as private housing projects that involved the use of just within the crane's lifting
capacity
precast facades. With the accumulated experience, it felt ready to move one step further. The Fu Tei project
proved ideal: it was an in-house project with New World as the developer, thus making it easier to win
support for unconventional ideas. Sister companies provided the E&M and precasting services, facilitating
collaboration, and the site was located in a remote area with plenty of storage space for precast units.

PK Ng & Associates (HK) Ltd was appointed as the project architect and Ove Arup & Partners the structural
engineer.
A semi-precast slab being
Opting for structural precasting necessitated changes to the whole design process. Instead of drawing up lifted into place
the aesthetic design then splitting it up into precast elements, the architect had to start with the floor layout
and devise a design that would minimise the number of precast components required.

Each typical floor of the building contains ten flats in four different layouts. The typical floor has a gross floor
area of about 600 sq m. The architect optimised the design for precasting by mirroring the flats floor plans,
arriving at a structure that required only nine standardised precast elements, for bay windows, columns,
balconies, shear walls, facades, kitchens, bathrooms, semi-precast slabs and staircases. Minimising the
number of moulds required was important because steel moulds account for a significant portion of
precasting cost and their manufacture involves a long lead time.

A total of 48 moulds were made; floor slabs accounted for the largest number of moulds because of the time
needed for steel fixing. Each floor was made up of 127 precast units which were delivered to site and placed
in a fan position to facilitate handling by crane. To make the operation more efficient, the storage position of
Staircases were also
each unit was clearly marked on the ground so the workers would remember where to find them. precast

Planning and logistics

Each floor was constructed on a five-day cycle. "We went to other sites where precasting was used, to
calculate the amount of time needed for each operation. Then we drew up our own timetable," Mr Chung
explained. "It's not particularly quick if you compare it to conventional construction, but it's much safer and
the work is not so affected by the weather."
The precast facades came
with tiles and window
The learning curve stretched over three to four floors, when the team grappled with the challenge of frames already fitted
structural precasting. The first floor took nine days.

Good logistics was crucial to the project. The precaster had originally assumed that since the site was close
to the sea, the units could be delivered by barge before being transported a short distance by road, but the
contractor knew better. Trial runs were made to test different delivery routes and site access. It turned out
the sea option was not viable because the units would exceed the ferry pier's overhang limit, so it was back
to the road network.

The lifting operation also required detailed planning. The designed weight of each unit must not exceed the
lifting capacity of the tower crane after the weight of associated equipment had been deducted. The
associated equipment in question was a parallel frame required to centre the units being lifted, to prevent
them from tilting because their centre of gravity was skewed.

The frame weighed 740 kg while the heaviest unit, the bathroom module, measured 2,500 mm x 1,750 mm
and weighed about 10 t. The total to be lifted was thus just within the crane's maximum lifting capacity of 12
t, within a narrow radius.

"At the end of the jib the lifting capacity is just 6.8 t, and we have to take into account wind loading as well,"
Mr Chung pointed out.

Structural tie

The Buildings Department (BD) was highly supportive of the project and approved the submissions quickly,
but it also demanded strict monitoring: in an unusual move, it sent six senior officers to the precasting

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factory in China to inspect the operation. It also wanted to make sure the building would not be subject to
the danger of progressive collapse, which is liable to affect precast structures.

The construction team, of course, was well aware of the historical cases and keen to address the BD's
concern. To prevent progressive collapse, Arup developed a structural tie system for the precast structural
wall. Instead of a flat joint, a step joint was adopted, to effect load transfer as well as watertightness.

Connection of the structural wall panels to the slab was achieved by placing each panel over five steel bars.
The panels were grouted on site to strengthen the connection. A raised bucket using gravity to obtain a
hydraulic head fed grout into a corrugated duct between the panels from the bottom to avoid building up an
air trap. This was something that would normally be sub-contracted to somebody else, but to ensure quality
and efficiency, the contractor trained up a team of its own workers to handle the grouting and provided them
with marked buckets to make sure they got the mix right.

BD required three points to be cored for testing at five-storey intervals to make sure the grout reached the
top of each duct. To avoid breaking the steel, Arup added an extra section above the corrugated duct to
allow for visual inspection. Grout being visible in this section meant the corrugated duct below was also
filled.

For the bay windows, which consisted of two precast panels incorporating a structural column inside, the
two panels were connected using splice sleeves, with the grout being poured into the sleeves before the
upper panels were installed. Each balcony was designed with one-third of its supporting beam protruding at
the back ready for the connection, to satisfy BD's requirement for monolithic casting of balconies. Fifty-
millimetre thick semi-precast slabs were manufactured with small trusses to strengthen them and minimise
the likelihood of splitting during the lifting operation on account of their 4.5 m span. Semi-precast slabs
cover most of the floor area except that adjacent balconies, where in situ construction was needed to hold
the balconies in place.

Precasting as far as possible

All tiles, for the precast bathrooms and kitchens as well as the external walls, were affixed at the factory,
before installation. A cleaner, safer setting for the tiling work resulted in stronger bonds and less tile
wastage. In fact, overall wastage was reduced because of precast construction.

"Concreting a floor by conventional methods would generate 16 waste trips; on this project it was only five,"
Mr Chung said.

The contractor even precast the non-repetitive elements. The plant rooms, parapets and other items on the
roof comprised only a small portion of the total concrete used, but since the cost of constructing them by
traditional means was also high because of the need to erect scaffolding for the work, the contractor
adopted a hybrid solution by using standard forms rather than custom-made moulds to precast the
components off-site. The podium and the core wall were the main components of the project to be built in
situ.

Because the Fu Tei project is the first in Hong Kong to use precast structural elements, a full-scale mock-up
was set up to test the performance of all the modules and obtain BD's approval. Monotonic load test to
failure was followed by repeated wind loading (using the wind load of a 50-year typhoon) and water tests.

The building contains 310 flats, including three duplexes (also built with precast units). It was completed in
eight months and an occupation permit was issued this spring.

Precast elements are believed to account for 15% (by volume of concrete) of a typical public housing
project; on the Fu Tei project, that figure is 50%. Mr Chung would not reveal the total cost of the project, but
said that the contractor had initially projected the cost to be 4% higher than that of a comparable building
constructed with traditional methods. The actual difference was less than 2% and it was more than made up
for by the exemption from GFA calculations granted by BD as an incentive for developers to adopt precast
construction. On this project, the GFA gained was 6%. The project is also expected to reap the benefit of a
substantial reduction in defect cost because the workmanship on items such as tiles and windows, which
were all factory-fitted, was of a higher quality.

Although precast construction offers many advantages, there are constraints which will discourage some if
not most developers from adopting it, Mr Chung pointed out.

"Precasting requires detailed planning and the design must be finalised early on. In Hong Kong projects
tend to be fast-tracked and the designs are progressively changed. Developers like to have the flexibility to
change the design; they don't like to finalise the design so early because market preference may change.
It's difficult for them to commit to a final design so early when the market may want something very different
by the time the project's finished," he explained.

"Also, precasting is not suitable for every project. It needs sufficient storage space for the precast units,
equal to at least one-quarter of the average floor area, and site access has a big impact on whether
precasting is viable or not. For example, on the south side of Hong Kong Island the roads are so narrow that
it's impossible to deliver large precast units to a site there."

Fortunately, most parts of Hong Kong have wider roads than the south side of Hong Kong Island. Given the
benefits precasting has given the Fu Tei project, more developers will hopefully be persuaded to adopt this
cleaner, safer and more environmentally friendly method of building construction.

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