the crane the crane | Page 233 | Syracusefan.com

the crane the crane

Dear Mr. Campbell,

I contacted you initially on June 15th regarding what the “hoops” that support the fabric portion of the new roof were called. Your courteous reply was that the steel tube arches that support the tensioned membrane (pfte-coated fiberglass fabric) are referred to as “fabric arches” although there is no established technical name for them and they develop in the course of the project organically by the construction team.

You then explained, in answer to my second question, about how they are attached to the cable truss by steel fabrications that bolt to the cable intersection clamps and that the typical arch arrangement is made via a machined ball and socket so as to pin the arch to the cable truss. You added that the group of interest I describe your installation to as I did the construction of the new crown truss should be able to see them being attached on the web cam after the cable truss is pulled into place and jacked occurring over the next 4 to 5 weeks.

I want to thank you again for your courtesy in informing the group through your e mail what the pieces are called. I believe we all visited the Geiger site and saw the arches stacked and being heated and also the machined ball and socket parts.

Having the Engineer of Record reply to us with this information was very informative. We are grateful you took the time to do so.

We do have one last question I asked in an earlier reply to you. Will we be able to view this installation only through the current web cam on Lawrinson Hall? Or will you, (Geiger Engineers), install your own camera inside the “stadium” to record the project for your own records and if so would there be a link which we could access to have a better view of the work? It seems, to many, the current camera is too far away to see the detail of the project develop or do you believe the web cam to be sufficient.

We would appreciate it if you could advise us as to what will be happening in this regard since we are all very interested in your phase of this historic project.

On behalf of many Syracuse Alumni and students and other people close to the university observing this, thank you for all the information you have provided to have us understand as much about the project as possible especially the most difficult phase the construction of and raising of the new roof.

Sincerely,

Bill Phillips SU '68
 
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a picture or video of the interior of the Dome. There’s been zero updates as well. University PR is non-existent.
The University is smart. As much as we would love to see progress it wouldn't take much for someone to post a comment or screen shot showing a breach of CO19 regulations for the project to be put in jeopardy. SU is wise to control the images of the work.
 
Today's update:

They have spent a good deal of time looking closely at the X bracing on the southwest diagonal wall. I am assuming the diagonal walls are most subject to the stresses of the new roof so they are paying close attention to them. Hopefully this is normal and nothing to be worried about.

It looks like they have connected a number of big objects to the top of the crown truss. It appears they are connecting them close to the middle of each of the diagonal walls. Do not know what they are. Maybe hydraulic jacks? They don't look like any pictures I have seen of these jacks.

To me, most of the activity on the dome floor appears to be focusing on the south side of the cable net, and attaching it to the crown truss above it. There are at least 5 cables all in close proximity to each other and all of them look like they are connected to the cable net (based on their angles).

Maybe this is the first area they are concentrating on getting connected fully to the crown truss over the next week or two, and we will see the cables from the rest of the crown truss become less vertical and get split up (I think they are all actually two cables) as they get attached to the cable net?

Until I see jacks getting put in place, I can't imagine them starting the process of raising the cable net.
062420.jpg
 
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This is my second attempt to try and get a response about a camera from Geiger.

Seeing how easily the initial reply came back to me about the fabric arches and David Campbell being very glad to supply us with information I wonder if the reason for no interior camera had already been decided before the second phase began. If the issue is about legal/COVID, there's your answer and we don't waste any time. No big deal if it's COVID but let us know. It's not top secret information, everyone in the world is dealing with the same issue so I wonder why they don't just reveal why they are not putting a camera in for us. Oh, I forgot a non-communicator is involved here.

For the University and the future documentary I hope there's a camera or two there. David Campbell is saying we will be able to watch the installation of the arches from the "web cam" which is so far away I doubt we'll have a very good view of that part of this phase - we'll see. But make sure you have your masks on while the roof is going up or there could be trouble. Silent Sala may find out. ;)
 
Here’s the two cranes at the amazon location. Either look familiar? I’ll get a close up tomorrow.

View attachment 182965
Those cranes do not look familiar to me.

Back to the dome project. A large red crane has appeared by the old law school, north of the dome. I have to assume it is going to be assisting in the raising of the roof in some way. TM and Retro said there were going to be 2 cranes involved, so another is probably going to pop up soon.

This is what it looks like:

062520.jpg


Very hard to see what is going on from the Lawrinson camera (somewhere, someone is grinning evilly reading this), but it looks like the process of connecting the cable net to the cables tied to the crown truss is continuing. Rather slowly.

Work is continuing on near the bottom of a couple of the blue platforms installed on the inside of the crown truss. Can't see what they are doing (an evil man smiles again). Maybe installing hydraulic jacks?

I would think we are due for an update from PS soon. It has been a long time with no communication. I know Pete is 'not a fan' but...
 
Another update:

Work on connecting the cables hanging from the crown truss to the cable net laid out on the dome floor appears to be proceeding with some dispatch. It looks to me as though the cables on the south, southwest and western walls are all significantly less vertical than they were this morning.

I think they still have work to do on the north side of the building, and the eastern side, but they are making good progress today.

062520a.jpg
 
Has part of another crane shown up? Walt's yard has what looks to be a base for another crane.
 
Has part of another crane shown up? Walt's yard has what looks to be a base for another crane.
Mark and Retro said they heard two cranes were going to be brought in to help put up the roof.

One just popped by the old law school.

Agree. This looks like the start of the second.
 
I posted this picture capture but cant type text in reply's or new threads, anyway, this little cart has wheels! Do you think this is the first cart for the coaster, lol !!
Cool. That blue thing looks like it might be a compressor. It looks like an engine of some sort. Could it be used to power one or more hydraulic jacks?

I like that you can clearly see they have the excess length of the cables connecting the cable net to the crown truss draped over the crown truss. My guess is that as they start to jack the net up, we will see the cable on the outside of the crown truss get longer and longer. Should be a good way to gauge progress.

I have done a little reading. I think the type of jack that will be used to lift our cable net is a strand jack. I am guessing it will actually be 34 of them, one for each of the columns, except for the two with lightning rods.

Here is what one looks like and how it works:

Litzenheber.gif


More on strand jacks:


It look like a company called WB Equipment Corporation is providing the jacks for the dome roof replacement project. Not sure if they are providing all the jacks for the actual roof raising or they provided jacks for earlier, more simple tasks. Maybe the latter.

If the pictures are the right ones, I am guessing the jacks they used/will use look like this:

20191029_103556-1024x576.jpg


 
Cool. That blue thing looks like it might be a compressor. It looks like an engine of some sort. Could it be used to power one or more hydraulic jacks?

I like that you can clearly see they have the excess length of the cables connecting the cable net to the crown truss draped over the crown truss. My guess is that as they start to jack the net up, we will see the cable on the outside of the crown truss get longer and longer. Should be a good way to gauge progress.

I have done a little reading. I think the type of jack that will be used to lift our cable net is a strand jack. I am guessing it will actually be 34 of them, one for each of the columns, except for the two with lightning rods.

Here is what one looks like and how it works:

Litzenheber.gif


More on strand jacks:


It look like a company called WB Equipment Corporation is providing the jacks for the dome roof replacement project. Not sure if they are providing all the jacks for the actual roof raising or they provided jacks for earlier, more simple tasks. Maybe the latter.

If the pictures are the right ones, I am guessing the jacks they used/will use look like this:

20191029_103556-1024x576.jpg


The blue thing in your animation is the “cable”. Strand jacks, clamp and pull the cables through the jacks to allow for long (essentially unlimited) lengths of cable to be pulled. In contrast, the picture of the jack you linked, the amount of pull would be limited by the length of the hydraulic cylinder.
 
Cool. That blue thing looks like it might be a compressor. It looks like an engine of some sort. Could it be used to power one or more hydraulic jacks?

I like that you can clearly see they have the excess length of the cables connecting the cable net to the crown truss draped over the crown truss. My guess is that as they start to jack the net up, we will see the cable on the outside of the crown truss get longer and longer. Should be a good way to gauge progress.

I have done a little reading. I think the type of jack that will be used to lift our cable net is a strand jack. I am guessing it will actually be 34 of them, one for each of the columns, except for the two with lightning rods.

Here is what one looks like and how it works:

Litzenheber.gif


More on strand jacks:


It look like a company called WB Equipment Corporation is providing the jacks for the dome roof replacement project. Not sure if they are providing all the jacks for the actual roof raising or they provided jacks for earlier, more simple tasks. Maybe the latter.

If the pictures are the right ones, I am guessing the jacks they used/will use look like this:

20191029_103556-1024x576.jpg


I have no idea but it almost looks like some type of mobile generator.
 
The blue thing in your animation is the “cable”. Strand jacks, clamp and pull the cables through the jacks to allow for long (essentially unlimited) lengths of cable to be pulled. In contrast, the picture of the jack you linked, the amount of pull would be limited by the length of the hydraulic cylinder.
Agree. WB has supplied some jacks for the project but they seem too small time to handle the job of lifting the roof.

I don’t think there is any question the roof will be lifted using strand jacks. The big question are, when will they appear? And how will it work?

This video, from a stadium in Capetown South Africa, shows the strand jacks in action better than any other I have seen. Check out around 59 seconds in for some good shots of the strands.



Here is a still from the video that I think shows how the jacks will be set up on the crown truss.

59BD8C4E-9FE3-420A-9098-35C725307BBA.jpeg


I am hoping to see 34 of these installed up there in the near term. Don’t think we can proceed until the jacks are in place and ready to go.
 
Cool. That blue thing looks like it might be a compressor. It looks like an engine of some sort. Could it be used to power one or more hydraulic jacks?

I like that you can clearly see they have the excess length of the cables connecting the cable net to the crown truss draped over the crown truss. My guess is that as they start to jack the net up, we will see the cable on the outside of the crown truss get longer and longer. Should be a good way to gauge progress.

I have done a little reading. I think the type of jack that will be used to lift our cable net is a strand jack. I am guessing it will actually be 34 of them, one for each of the columns, except for the two with lightning rods.

Here is what one looks like and how it works:

Litzenheber.gif


More on strand jacks:


It look like a company called WB Equipment Corporation is providing the jacks for the dome roof replacement project. Not sure if they are providing all the jacks for the actual roof raising or they provided jacks for earlier, more simple tasks. Maybe the latter.

If the pictures are the right ones, I am guessing the jacks they used/will use look like this:

20191029_103556-1024x576.jpg


I've posted the vid before, but it's almost exactly how they lifted the roof at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in terms of the hydraulics.

 
I've posted the vid before, but it's almost exactly how they lifted the roof at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in terms of the hydraulics.

This is cool.

I have seen a bunch of videos of cable nets getting raised, but not one as complex and involved as ours, with a full fledged net that runs from side to side and end to end.

It looks like they are encasing the roof cables on the north side of the building (probably other areas as well) in light colored sleeves. Haven't seen that in other cable net raisings.

Not much activity below the west wall, where they may be in the early stages of building another big red crane. The big red crane on the north side of the building has done little to date. I assume it was brought in to help with the cable net raising and until it starts, it is mostly just going to sit around.

We know renting these things is expensive, so having them on site surely means the process of raising the net is going to start soon. Right?

Anyone?
 
I know the higher ups say the timeline is on schedule but that deadline keeps getting closer and closer and there is little progress that “we” have seen. I’m sure they are working hard and accomplishing a lot but as each day passes I can’t believe how much work is left. Especially sense this roof raising is supposed to be the hardest part of this project, which will only bring set backs and delays, I’m starting to believe some things might not be completed by the first game.
 

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