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Demolishing a wharf is a demolition job with nowhere to put the debris. Everything that comes off the structure has to be lifted clear and taken away — nothing can be dropped, pushed or allowed to fall into the water below.
Austral Contractors was engaged by Hickory to remove the existing wharf at the Regatta site in Docklands.
We planned the demolition as a sequence of lifts before any cutting started. The wharf deck was set out into blocks sized to the crane’s capacity and reach, and more than 200 core holes were drilled to form lifting points, positioned so each block would come away balanced and under control.
Road sawing established the cut lines across the deck. Wire sawing made the deeper severance cuts through the structure below, cutting through heavily reinforced sections in a single pass without vibration or impact loading on a structure already at the end of its life. Each block was then lifted clear, loaded directly to truck and removed from site.
Working over open water shaped every part of the method. Slurry containment was in place throughout to keep cutting water and fines out of the bay, and cutting was programmed around the tide so the lower sections of the structure were worked in the window each day when they were most accessible.
