Hydraulic movement specialists Bill Boley Ltd have successfully completed a vital jacking, propping and load measuring project during the construction of the so-called Chips building on the New Islington Millennium Village site in East Manchester. This somewhat bizarre building, designed by the flamboyant architect Will Alsop, comprises 145 one, two and three-bedroom apartments. At nine storeys high, it gets its name from the way it zigzags along the edge of the Ashton Canal as a group of three-storey elements or ‘Chips’ stacked on top of each other.

At one end of the building the middle three-storey element is cantilevered out by thirteen metres and during construction this overhang has been supported by eight 100 tonne jacks, mounted in two sets of four on top of custom strain gauged Megashor Plus props.

These strain gauged support structures act like giant load cells and, as the building work progressed, provided vital load information via data loggers with built-in modems. This remote monitoring capability allows long-term load trends to be monitored remotely by Bill Boley Ltd. In addition the ‘text message’ alarm feature automatically warns designated recipients of any out-of tolerance load excursions.

On completion, when the jacks were lowered, the whole cantilevered section dropped by about 15 mm, well within the calculated limits.

As Bill Boley’s MD concluded: “Although we are used to such complex and critical jacking procedures, it is always somewhat of a relief when the theoretical loading calculations are proven in practice.”