Recently, the West-to-East Water Division Project in Xiamen, Fujian came to a critical juncture. It was reported that the steel pipelines involved in this project had the largest diameter and longest length in offshore construction of Fujian. This project was planned to lay about 15 kilometers of DN1600(1600 mm) raw water pipeline (phaseⅠproject) and build a water pumping station of 250,000 tons daily intake (phaseⅡproject), with a total investment of about 510 million yuan.
There was no doubt that West-to-East Water Division Project was of great significance, and was difficult to construct as well. The whole pipelines weighed 954 tons in total. In order to complete the operation effectively, the construction team had assembled five heavy lift vessels weighting hundreds of tons, the largest of which had a lifting capacity of 700 tons. Moreover, 12 groups of steel buoys were used as lifting points and 10 groups of steel floating boxes were used to assist sinking.
Offshore operation was affected by both changeable weather and tidal fluctuations. The constructers carried out field investigation for many times by using Computer Simulate Technology, which provided a strong technical support for the sinking work.
After continuous optimization and adjustment according to the real-time sea state, the construction team finally determined the best location for the 5 lifting ships. During the sinking operation, the real-time stress and strain of pipelines should be monitored so as to ensure the stability of lowering process.
Therefore, the constructers installed 48 stress gages and 18 acceleroteters on the pipelines, using RE-846U Rugged Data Acquisition System, WW-844D Wireless Dynamic Strain Test and Analysis System, WZ-88S Wireless Dynamic Strain Test and Analysis System of Dynatronic to collect and analyze real-time data. Then, according to the stress condition of pipelines, the operation was adjusted at any time to make sure everything was in order.
The entire project is expected to be completed in 2019, which will effectively solve the regional water shortage problem in Xiang 'an District as well as improve people's livelihood and make contribution to economic development.
