Rubb Fabric Building News

Hosted by the Port of New Orleans, Rubb Buildings will be an exhibitor (booth 437) at the 19^th Annual Breakbulk Transportation Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans October 14-16, 2008. This conference is the oldest and largest gathering of breakbulk transportation executives. It brings together shippers, carriers, forwarders, logistic providers, ports, attorneys and government officials for three days of networking and discussions of the latest trends in the breakbulk industry.

With the fabric sheets laced together, the next step is to heat seal the PVC over the seams. This effectively turns the building membrane into a continuous, watertight shell enclosing the entire structure. This week’s video shows the crew working up and down the seams, sealing them shut with a hot-air gun. They also start sealing the flap down the ridge of the building.

At this point, the bulk of the work is taking place inside the structure, as they prepare the floor for the radiant heat pipes and install the steel in the gable ends. With the membrane in place, we won’t be able to see much activity on the time-lapse camera for a while. I will still post weekly updates as construction progresses.
 
 
 

Now that all the main sheets have been pulled down over the framework, the next step is to lace the sheets together. There are two seams that connect two adjacent sheets together; one on the inside and one on the outside. Working from the top of the building down, the rope is threaded through the inside seam in a zig-zag pattern, and then pulled tight. Slack is pulled out of the rope in short sections, again working from the peak of the building down to the base. When the inside seam is tight, the process is repeated with the outside seam.

In Friday’s video, you can see Chris, Justin & Al working their way up and down the seams pulling them tight. Mid-afternoon a passing shower cuts work short.

The bulk of the PVC sheets were unrolled and pulled over the framework this week. As of Friday, only one sheet remained to be installed. This puts the building 90% under cover, and once the sheets have been laced and heat-sealed together they can work inside installing the concrete floor and mezzanine.

In Thursday’s time-lapse video, two sheets are unrolled on the north side of the building and one on the south side in the morning. I went up on the roof for the south sheet to videotape the operation. Later that afternoon another sheet was hoisted up and placed on the roof to be unrolled on Friday.

This week the construction crew dropped five sheets of the building’s PVC membrane cladding. The process is fairly straightforward, although not for those with fear of heights! First, the rolls of PVC are unrolled down the length of the building, then attached with hardware to a tube that runs along the ridge. This secures the sheet in place at the top. A tube is inserted in a pocket at the base of the sheet, and ropes are run down the outside of the structure and pulled with a forklift from below. This pulls the sheet down over the outside of the building in one quick operation. The base of the sheet is then attached to the foundation with tensioning hardware and pulled tight.

In Tuesday’s video, you can see that two sheets on the far side of the building are already in place from Monday. An additional sheet is pulled down on the far side in the morning, and two more on the near side are tensioned in the afternoon. The camera lens is also visited by a bee in the middle of the day. Later on we see a passing shower after work hours, and finally a sunset finishes the day.

Work on the building this week was minimal as only a skeleton crew was assigned to construction. In Thursday’s time-lapse video (to the right), the camera was reset to its default position from a thunderstorm the night before, and then repositioned mid-morning. You can see the gable endwall steelwork being fitted into place until late morning, and a few passing showers in the afternoon.

This was another slow construction week as some crews resumed normal shop and site duties.  More roof purlins were added and the bracing cables were tightened.  Most importantly, a few rolls of the PVC fabric were hoisted up and placed on the roof of the building, as shown in the video.  When the remaining rolls are fabricated and placed, they will be pulled down over the framework to form a watertight covering.

It has also been a wet week, with a thunderstorm nearly every day, playing havoc with the camera’s electronics from time to time.  Today, you can see the morning fog burn off and the puddle on the shop floor evaporate in the sun through the day.
 
 
 

The new building really took shape this week with the majority of the roof purlins filled in and the final spans lifted into place and braced off.  This means that the crane is no longer necessary and the remaining work can be done using the telescoping forklift and manlifts. In this week’s time-lapse video you can see a few roof purlins being added here and there before the crane arrives.

This was an exciting week for the construction of the new welding shop!  On Monday the remaining spans of roof trusses were assembled on the ground.  Tuesday was the big day: the crane arrived bright and early and the first span was lifted shortly after.  After guying off the first span to stabilize it, two more spans were lifted into place and roof purlins added to tie them to the first span.  Finally, axial frames, cables and more roof purlins were fitted in to complete a “braced bay”; a very solid structural element at the end of the building that will act as an anchor for additional spans to be fitted in place.  A video showing the day’s events is to the right.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The crane lifted some more axial steel into place Wednesday morning, but the rest of the day was rained out.  The crane returned on Thursday, and the time-lapse to the right shows a solid day’s work, despite a few intermittent showers.  The majority of the remaining spans were lifted into place and tied together with roof purlins.  As you can see, the building assembles quickly with a full crew working. Finally, on Friday, three more spans were lifted before rain cut the day short.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

This was a slow week of construction as the axial steel and cables were fitted in between the standing leg trusses.

A few roof spans were also assembled on the ground in preparation for next week’s crane lifting. This week’s video shows the leg longitudinal tubes and leg bend d-frames fitted into place.