Ingula Pumped Storage Scheme (my work)

Well for anyone who doesn't know, im working for a Italian company which is in a joint venture with Eskom to build a power station, at the moment we're busy with the tunneling system which will house the turbines etc.



So without furhter ado, here are some pictures of where i work.This first one is the layout of our entire works area.





MAT

So this is the MAT (Main Access Tunnel).

We're about 20m out of 1500m done. They were busy charging the face of the tunnel here, which means that they had just inserted the dynamite and is now inserting the charges which ignites the dynamite, obviously...

Shotcrete

This process here is called Shotcreting, a high pressure hose applies shotcrete onto a surface that needs reinforcing. Shotcrete is the international primary support for tunneling systems, it's mixed design is quite differerent from concrete and must be quite exact and go through numerous chemical and strength testing before it will be approved for application. Every 3 metres or so we have to submit a core sample to the lab for analysis and testing.

Open Cut

This is the Open Cut, its like the drive way to the MAT, the previous picture was a wall of the Open Cut being shotcreted. This is not a recent picture though, quite a bit has changed sicnce this was taken.

Well that's it for now, next time i'll go through the CAT (Construction Access Tunnel)

Ciao for now.