First 3,200-Tonne Circular Caisson Concrete Pour Completed for the Gulei South No. 3 Berth Project Undertaken by The Sixth Engineering (Xiamen) Co., Ltd. of CCCC Third Harbor Engineering Co., Ltd.

Recently, the South No. 3 Berth Project at the Gulei Operation Area of the Gulei Port Area of Xiamen Port, undertaken by The Sixth Engineering (Xiamen) Co., Ltd. of CCCC Third Harbor Engineering Co., Ltd., completed the first bottom-layer concrete pour of a 3,200-tonne circular precast caisson, with 321 cubic metres of concrete poured in a single operation and a pour height of 2.5 metres, marking that the production of the project's precast components has been fully launched and that the project has made important milestone progress.

The project is located on the east bank of the east entrance of Dongshan Bay, to the west of the Gulei Peninsula in Zhangpu County, Fujian Province. It is Fujian Province's first 300,000-tonne-class oil berth, with the marine structure designed to the 450,000-tonne class and a designed annual throughput of 16 million tonnes. Once completed, it will effectively improve the port functions of the Gulei Port Area of Xiamen Port and meet the large-tonnage oil transportation needs of the Gulei Petrochemical Park, and it is of great significance for promoting the development of Zhangzhou's marine economy and serving the construction of the Fujian port cluster.

The project's wharf berths have a total length of 473 metres and adopt a “butterfly” layout, connected to the rear land area by a main approach bridge with a total length of 590.5 metres. A total of 15 super-large circular caissons need to be precast and installed, each 16 metres in diameter and 29.5 metres high, adopting a “well”-shaped compartment layout with 9 compartments in total and a total weight of about 3,200 tonnes.

To ensure the high-quality progress of caisson precasting, the project department built a modern precast yard covering an area of more than 46,000 square metres on site, with 5 caisson precasting base moulds and a storage area able to hold 10 finished caissons, and equipped with gantry cranes, travelling tower cranes and other large equipment to organize layered flow-line operations. The caisson is poured in 7 layers; during the pour, the material-distribution principle of “layered, symmetrical and uniform” is strictly implemented, and testing and quality-control personnel are stationed on site throughout to ensure that the concrete is solid inside and smooth outside. The full launch of caisson precasting opens the first link in the wharf main-structure construction chain of “precasting–shipping out–installation–core filling”, laying a solid foundation for achieving the caisson installation and the first important milestone on schedule.

The project department will continue to anchor the construction goal of the “120-day hard battle”, keep seizing the golden construction period, tighten responsibility for production safety, steadily advance various construction tasks such as layered caisson precasting and underwater dredging, and spare no effort to build a safe, century-lasting quality project, contributing the strength of CCCC Third Harbor Engineering to the construction of the Gulei Petrochemical Park and the high-quality development of Fujian's ports.