Remember the Panama Canal Extention?

[Alaskan Sea-Duction]

Opps!

Cracks Put April 2016 Delivery of Panama Canal Expansion At Risk - gCaptain

 

[No Mast]

that doesn't look good

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Where's that little Dutch boy when you need him? I think you'd need a LOT of little Dutch boys. After all...Many Hans make light work...

 

[clynn]

The article states "cracks were detected". Based on the picture, I'd say that was bit understated.

 

[Ski in NC]

Looks like they did one pour, then took a weekend off and finished up. Really sloppy stuff, there.

 

[kchace]

I hope this isn't indicative of the rest of the canal.

 

[Alaskan Sea-Duction]

Poor quality work and the workers went on strike for higher wages.....

 

[Soulshine]

Can you imagine what a complete failure would look like???? If you were nearby at the time on your boat!

 

[BandB]

Opps!

Cracks Put April 2016 Delivery of Panama Canal Expansion At Risk - gCaptain

This may be the more serious article.

A Concrete Sample Was Pulled from the New Panama Canal Locks and It Does Not Look Good - gCaptain

Between the two articles you may have both the symptom and the cause.

We saw the work being done as we came through the canal. Definitely the new one was awe inspiring. These type concrete problems are not that uncommon but the answers and corrections are typically not simple. I'm not a civil engineer or in that business but I have seen substandard concrete and walls having to come down and start over. Obviously that would be serious here so you have to hope they'll find such one batch or a few days of problem work and something they can reinforce and fix or at worse replace a small section.

If there's a delay, which seems very likely, then I would expect it to be a very long delay, not measured in weeks and months but in months and years.

 

[THD]

We had a similar issue here in the PNW with the new floating bridge across Lake Washington. The bridge floats on huge concrete boxes. Built in a specially built facility on the coast and then towed to the Lake. They had a lot of cracking and leaking issues. Turns out that building what appears to be just a big concrete box is a pretty complex engineering undertaking. Definitely caused some delays and added costs.

 

[motion30]

But they said it looked easy when the americans built it

 

[Steve]

But they said it looked easy when the americans built it

And that was 100 years ago!
I don't know how this project was let out or if any US companies bid on it?

 

[BandB]

And that was 100 years ago!
I don't know how this project was let out or if any US companies bid on it?

Three companies bid. The one awarded the job scored the highest on the technical evaluation and bid the lowest price.

 

[FF]

"But they said it looked easy when the Americans built it"

The USA probably didn't use Chinese cement?

 

[ulysses]

We used Chinese to build it but I don't know about the concrete. This should not have been a surprise if they had tested the cores as is normally done at 7, 14, & 28 days.

 

[CPseudonym]

The USA probably didn't use Chinese cement?

No kidding. Can't see it from my house must be the slogan.

 

[SCOTTEDAVIS]

 

[sbu22]

Like Ski said - cold joint.

 

[ulysses]

I see where the Nicaragua Canal was delayed (again) this week.