Submitted by Sahana Muralidharan

CVEN 684: PROFESSIONAL INTERNSHIP At Austin Bridge & Road, Irving

Submitted To

Dr. David Ford

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1

2.0 Lessons learned ......................................................................................................................... 2

2.1 Update primavera schedule ................................................................................................... 2

2.2 Tilos software ........................................................................................................................ 2

2.2.1 FM 455 – Denton County project ................................................................................... 3

2.2.2 NTTA –DNT project ...................................................................................................... 5

2.2.3 SH 34 Kaufman project .................................................................................................. 5

2.3 Site Visit.................................................................................................................................... 6

2.3.1 SH 34 Kaufman project .................................................................................................. 6

2.3.2 FM 148 ......................................................................................................................... 13

3.0 Activities and responsibilities ................................................................................................. 17

4.0 Conclusion and Suggestions ................................................................................................... 18

List of Figures

Figure 1 Iron Wolf Crusher 1000 series ......................................................................................... 3

Figure 2 Time - Distance graph for FM 455 project ....................................................................... 4

Figure 3 Tilos schedule for SH 34 Kaufman project ...................................................................... 6

Figure 4 Low profile concrete barrier (LPCB) ............................................................................... 7

Figure 5 Placement of LPCB .......................................................................................................... 7

Figure 6 Link-Belt 248 Hylab 5 ...................................................................................................... 8

Figure 7 Trimble SPS320 Total Station .......................................................................................... 9

Figure 8 360-degree prism ............................................................................................................ 10

Figure 9 TSC3 Controller ............................................................................................................. 10

Figure 10 Belly Dump Truck ........................................................................................................ 11

Figure 11 CAT M series Motor Grader ........................................................................................ 11

Figure 12 Sheep Foot Roller ......................................................................................................... 12

Figure 13 Beam placement on the bridge ..................................................................................... 13

Figure 14 CTB Rutting ................................................................................................................. 14

Figure 15 Wirtgen W 210 ............................................................................................................. 14

Figure 16 Truck Haul .................................................................................................................... 15

Figure 17 Dry Cement Spreader ................................................................................................... 15

Figure 18 Cement Mixer ............................................................................................................... 16

Figure 19 Pug Mill ........................................................................................................................ 16

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1.0 Introduction

Austin Industries is one of the nation’s largest US-based construction companies. It provides

services in nearly every type of Civil Construction work through three companies namely Austin

Bridge & Road (ABR), Austin Commercial and Austin Industrial. The company is a 100%

employee owned company since 2000 and has a history of about 100 years in the Industry. In the

heavy Industry, Austin Bridge & Road provides the following services:

Preconstruction

Design-build

Construction Management at-risk

General Contracting

Austin works on four core values namely Safety, Service, Integrity and Ownership. Majority of

the projects taken up by ABR lies in the State of Texas. But they have also carried out projects in

Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Missouri and North Carolina. Some of the typical projects

undertaken by the company are as below.

I-30 HOV/ Managed Lanes

Austin is the prime contractor for this 18-mile project which begins half a mile west of

Fielder Road in Arlington and extends to Dallas at Sylvan Avenue. The scope of the work

includes widening of existing I-30 to include HOV/ Managed lanes, wishbone ramps,

bridge widening and toll infrastructure.

North Tarrant Express Zone 2

This project includes major rehabilitation to a series of Highways that run between I-35

W and Industrial Boulevard in North Tarrant County. Scope of the project comprises the

construction of new direct connect ramps from SH 183 to SH 121, a new Murphy-West

park bridge, main lane reconstruction and frontage roads.

DFW Connector: Asphalt Paving

The eight-mile project involves rebuilding portions of four highways, two interchanges

and five bridges. The DFW Connector includes state highways 114 and 121 and adjacent

roadways located north of DFW Airport. Austin is responsible for producing and placing

all asphalt. The scope of work consists of priming the lime subgrade, constructing

temporary asphalt detours and placing 2.5 inch asphalt bond breaker.

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My Internship with Austin Bridge & Road for the summer term extended from May 18, 2015 to

August 7, 2015. My only expectation from the Internship was to gain practical exposure in a

construction Industry and realize how the theory is put to practice. I was definitely in good hands

to achieve what I desired and more. I was working at the Irving, Dallas office and my work was

primarily in the scheduling department. Predominantly I worked with an emerging scheduling

software: Tilos 8.0. This software has its origins in Germany and is still in its early stages of

implementation in the United States. Detailed explanation of this software is in the following

sections. Apart from this, I also visited certain roadway projects to gain practical knowledge of

construction.

2.0 Lessons learned

2.1 Update primavera schedule

The scheduling managers at Austin use two databases for Primavera namely P6 Version 6 (P6V6)

and P6 Version 8 (P6V8). P6V8 is an online database but is not much different from the other

version. The company is slowly shifting all its work to P6V8 from P6V6. A month end update is

done to all projects that is on-going. I had an opportunity to do one such update. The project

manager for that project sent me a schedule with the actual dates and my role was to actualize the

dates for the completed activities and provide the manager with an updated schedule.

2.2 Tilos software

Tilos is a time-location planning software for managing linear construction projects, usually

infrastructure projects. The key benefit compared to Gantt chart is the flow of visual data in terms

of time and distance on one plan. The plot depicts on a single page all the activities that usually

runs for pages on a typical schedule. It not only simplifies the visualization process but also aids

in planning the resources. It evidently shows the flaws in a schedule and the crunch for resources.

It paints a better picture of a project when compared to pages of Primavera schedule.

Austin Bridge & Road bought a licensed version of this software to explore its possibilities and

ease of application to the projects. As the state still requires Primavera schedules, Tilos will not

replace it but would serve as a useful tool for the schedulers and the project managers to understand

the project better. As the software is new to the company, I got an opportunity to explore the

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extents of its ability. I figured how to import P6 schedules into Tilos and create the time-location

graph. I compiled my understandings and created a user guide which explains the process of

creating a schedule in Tilos with screenshots. To test the extents of the software, I applied it to

projects of varying sizes and durations. The different projects are explained in detail as follows.

2.2.1 FM 455 – Denton County project

This project site lies in the Denton County, Texas and will reduce the risk of accidents on the

existing FM 455 road. The project scope includes 0.75 miles of pavement and 160 ft. of bridge

construction. The old roadway would be demolished after the traffic switches to the new roadway.

The project was commenced on April 6th, 2015 and the contract duration is 193 working days.

The project involves minning and excavating a hill which embanking near the bridge. The rock

encountered was tougher to break to the desired size with the available rock breaker equipment.

As the site experienced torrential rains and the required poduction rates were not met, the project

was delayed by 45 calender days. Austin decided that the monetary loss could be reduced if they

brought in a different equipment. Hence they brought in Iron wolf 1000 crusher (Figure 1) which

met the expected production rates and the project is trying to make up the loss of days.

Figure 1 Iron Wolf Crusher 1000 series

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Tilos software was first applied to this project and the Time – Distance plot is as shown in Figure

2. The plan of the project is at the top of the graph and the stations are along the X- axis. The time

axis ascends as we move up on Y-axis. Each activity has a specific template and that has been

created in the software to be used globally across all projects. The schedule in Tilos can be created

either from scratch or by importing the activities from Primavera. As TxDot requires P6 schedules,

this plot in Tilos was created by importing the data from Primavera using Excel as a medium. The

graph readily shows all the activities occurring across the project at any instant of time. It can be

used as a planning tool to plan the resources at the start of the project.

Figure 2 Time - Distance graph for FM 455 project

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2.2.2 NTTA –DNT project

The Dallas North Tollway project is located in Collin County, Texas. The project scope includes

widening of the on and off ramps for 2.38 miles and 0.12 miles of bridge. Engineer’s estimate for

the project is around 56 Million USD. Austin started the work on Jun 1st 2015 and the duration of

the project is 935 calendar days.

In an effort to understand the project better, the schedule was depicted using Tilos 8.0. From the

time-distance graph, the project managers could clearly see that there are on a tight schedule and

many activities are happening at the same period of time. The plot evidently showed that it is a

resource dependent job and the necessary number of crews should be made available to keep the

job running on time. The graph can also be used as a decision tool to demand the necessary

resources from the owner or from the management to complete the project on-time.

2.2.3 SH 34 Kaufman project

This project is a Greenfield project in Kaufman County, Texas. The project includes construction

of 4 lanes of an urban roadway with the Interchange at US 175. The total length of the project is

1.84 miles and it connects to existing SH 243 & FM 1836. The project manager Mr. Thomas Burr

wished to see the schedule in Tilos in order to check if the project is running on- time and to verify

the availability of the required resources. Figure 3 shows this project in Tilos. The project was

divided into 2 parts as SH34 and US 175 were crossing each other, hence depicting the activities

on a single time-distance graph would not be feasible. The plot shows the project as of June end

update and no prominent flaws were found in the schedule.

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Figure 3 Tilos schedule for SH 34 Kaufman project

2.3 Site Visit

2.3.1 SH 34 Kaufman project

Construction work commenced on Jan 26, 2015 and the contract time is 24 months. Major

activities like concrete paving, bridge deck, MSE walls, earthwork, HMAC paving and milling are

self-performed by the company. There are five major subcontractors on this project working on

Drainage, Drilled shafts etc.

Despite the heavy rains and some issues like utility conflicts, this project is running on time with

no delays. Currently the project is in Phase 0 where they have closed a part of the frontage roads

on US 175 and are constructing the overpass on US 175. Meanwhile detour has been constructed

on FM 1836 and traffic has been switched to facilitate the milling of the asphalt pavement.

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I was involved in this project for five days to get on-site experience and to visually realize the

activities that were in the schedule. My activities and learnings are as listed below:

a) Low profile concrete barriers (LPCB) (Figure 4) were used to divert the traffic into specific

lanes as well as to assure the safety of the cars from falling off the road. LPCB were used

in the detour that was constructed on FM 1836. As an intern I did the quantity take offs

using Bluebeam Revu software and ordered LPCB as required. Verified the quantities on

site too and monitored the placement of the LPCB (Figure 5) by the subcontractor.

Meanwhile made sure the flaggers were diverting the traffic well and removed the super

cones & barrels that were no longer needed.

Figure 4 Low profile concrete barrier (LPCB)

Figure 5 Placement of LPCB

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b) Link-Belt 248 Hylab 5 (Figure 6) is a self-assembling lattice boom crane with 200 tons

capacity and boom length of 100ft. The crane reached the site by parts on eight 18 wheeler

trucks and was assembled on site without the use of another crane. The cabin with a part

of the boom were first set on the ground using the hydraulic jacks that are a part of the

body. The hook attached to this partial boom was then used to lift and fit the tracks and

counter-weights to itself. The boom was then lowered to the ground and the other parts

were attached to extend it to 100ft length. I got an opportunity to interact with the crane

operator and stand beside him to oversee the self-assembly of the crane. The experience

was both knowledgeable and exciting to me.

Figure 6 Link-Belt 248 Hylab 5

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c) Survey on-site: Figure 7 shows Trimble SPS620 total station that was used for surveying

on-site. I had an opportunity to visit the site with the surveyor and was able to witness the

following features of the total station.

It facilitates operation by a single person and thus avoiding miscommunication as

well as delay.

It has lock on feature where it automatically finds the prism and locks on it, thus

easing the process of shooting the prism.

The prism (Figure 8) can be shot from all directions and a specific radio channel

can be chosen for its communication with total station. This avoids the total station

to pick up other reflecting objects on-site and allows it to spot the prism easily.

The Trimble TSC3 controller (Figure 9) is a hand held device which is used to

communicate with Trimble GNSS receivers cable free via Bluetooth wireless

technology. Both Trimble total station and GPS devices can be operated using this

controller and it measures quickly and accurately.

Once the total station finds the target prism and locks on it, it automatically takes

measurements in direct and reverse mode to finally give the coordinates for the

point on which it has been centered.

Figure 7 Trimble SPS320 Total Station

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Figure 8 360-degree prism

Figure 9 TSC3 Controller

Being a Teaching Assistant for CVEN 303: Surveying lab, I could realize the extent to

which the technology has advanced in this field. The equipment are way more sophisticated

than the ones that are used in the class but follows the same basic principles of

measurement. I was impressed by the advancement and was able to capture videos to show

my students how surveying is done in the real world. I had an amazing opportunity to visit

the site with an experienced surveyor who taught me how to stake out points for the face

of the retaining walls.

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d) Certain equipment that were used on this site were new to me. They were used to backfill

the abutment on the north side of the bridge. Figure 10 shows a belly dump truck that

transported the dirt from a nearby site to the project site. The truck dumps the dirt from the

bottom and hence it saves time to load the dirt on site.

Figure 10 Belly Dump Truck

After the dirt was dumped for the backfill, a CAT M series motor grader (Figure 11) was used to

spread the dirt evenly throughout the area. The motor grader, frequently known as ‘The Blade’,

can move and rotate the blade in all 3 directions. This aggressive blade angle allows material to

roll more freely along the blade for better material control. Supplementary devices like GPS can

be attached to the blade and programmed to grade to the final cross-section required.

Figure 11 CAT M series Motor Grader

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Usually rollers are used to compact the dirt to the desired relative density. On this site, apart from

the rollers, ABR also had sheep foot rollers (Figure 12) for the same purpose. The advantage of

this sheep foot is that it provides a higher compaction as it pushes the soil in with its sheep’ foot

like projections. While pushing the soil in, the roller also vibrates providing a higher density soil.

Figure 12 Sheep Foot Roller

e) Beam Setting: The overpass on US 175 consisted of 4 spans and 20 beams in each span.

The average length of the beam is around 85ft with the maximum length being 93ft. The

beams on each span were done one at a time, hence takes 4 days to place all the beams. As

of August 7th 2015, beams on two spans have been placed. As the frontage roads are already

shut down for construction, Austin had to stop and regulate traffic when the beams were

placed in the span just above US 175. To lift this 10,000 lbs heavy beam, two Link-Belt

248 Hylab 5 were used as shown in Figure 13.

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Figure 13 Beam placement on the bridge

The beam were precast and arrived on 20 separate 18-wheelers. Lifting and placing each beam

took around 15 minutes, hence around 5 hours to complete placing beams for one span of the

bridge. There were two crews standing on the caps on either side of the span, to hold and position

the beam in place. This task called for extreme coordination between the two crane operators and

the workers placing the beam. All safety precautions were necessarily taken and hence was

executed efficiently without any accidents.

2.3.2 FM 148

This is one other construction project in Kaufman County carried out by Austin Bridge & Road.

The scope of the project includes 7.5 miles of milling, Cement treated base, chip seal and HMAC.

Work started on Jan 10, 2014 and the contractual duration of the project is 12 months. About one

month into the project they uncovered saturated clayey soil while milling. When the pavement was

laid, the proposed typical section failed and TXDOT stopped time due to the failing subgrade

(Figure 14). In the 1-mile stretch of road that had been “opened up”, ABR tested new design ideas

given by TXDOT, repaired potholes, and chip sealed all under force account payment. On March

23, 2015 TXDOT issued a new design that allowed ABR to continue work on the 1-mile of

roadway that was initially started. Contractor has submitted a re-design proposal, along with a

price for the new contract items associated and is waiting for TXDOT to make a decision on the

remaining 6 miles of the job.

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Figure 14 CTB Rutting

The contactor milled out the 1 mile of the pavement that failed using an asphalt milling equipment

Wirtgen W 210 (Figure 15). The position of the blade and the depth of the cut are fed into the Total

Station and communicates with the GPS installed on the equipment. The values are also displayed

on a screen which can be manually overridden by a personnel. This versatile milling machine is

track-driven and has a cutting depth of 13 inches.

Figure 15 Wirtgen W 210

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As the milling operation was carried out, the debris was thrown on to a conveyor belt and was

directed into a truck that was positioned in front of it (Figure 16). The arm of the milling equipment

could swing to exactly position the arm on top of the truck.

Figure 16 Truck Haul

After Asphalt was removed, the subgrade was treated with cement. Figure 17 shows a dry cement

spreader that was used to spray the cement in the desired portion of the pavement.

Figure 17 Dry Cement Spreader

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The cement was then mixed into the subgrade to stabilize and strengthen the base. The mixer as

shown in Figure 18 mixes the cement and the soil beneath it to achieve a cement treated base.

Figure 18 Cement Mixer

Subsequently flex base is placed on top of the cement treated base. For flex base, an equipment

called Pug mill (Figure 19) was used and it mixed crushed concrete, water and cement. This

mixture was the filled into the belly dump- trucks and was transported to the site. The haul time to

the site and back to the Pug mill site took around one hour and there were totally 7 trucks that were

used on site.

Figure 19 Pug Mill

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The next day, asphalt would be poured on the top of this flex base and a Hot-mixed Asphalt

(HMA) pavement would be laid. This entire process was repeated every four days to lay the

pavement in parts as they had to handle the existing traffic.

3.0 Activities and responsibilities

My activities and responsibilities as a scheduling Intern at ABR were not confined just to

scheduling but are listed as follows.

1. Interacted with the project manager to update the primavera schedule.

2. Visited FM 455 project to review the schedule and understood the practical problems faced

during the execution of the project.

3. Visited IH 30 project as a part of Intern site visit and gained a clear understanding of the

activities involved in a bridge construction.

4. Attended video conferences with Tilos software experts and gained in depth knowledge in

its working.

5. Drafted the plan for a project in AutoCAD to simplify the process of planning and

estimating.

6. Understood the working of the company by reading their TAW2 manual that explains the

Austin Way of working.

7. Created a user manual explaining in detail the procedure to create a schedule in Tilos 8.0.

8. Using a profile diagram, estimated the quantity take-offs for excavation and embankment.

9. Familiarized more with design-build and design-bid-build project delivery methods.

10. Learnt to update a schedule in Primavera on a monthly basis for real life projects.

11. Carried out quantity take offs for the low profile concrete barrier and monitored its

placement on site.

12. Understood how traffic switching and stripping is done in practice. Attended the training

for flaggers by which I realized the importance of safety in the field.

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4.0 Conclusion and Suggestions

Internship at ABR was truly a remarkable experience, training me both on and off site. Apart from

their work, I also learned how a team works in unison and how to balance work and life. I was

amazed by the work culture in the company and is reflected at any place across projects. I gained

hands-on experience with the scheduling software Tilos corroborated with the site experience I

acquired during the Job-site tours.

CVEN 641: Construction Engineering Systems provided a basis of scheduling in primavera. This

base knowledge eased the process of understanding the working of the new software. Equipment

productivity was dealt in CVEN 639: Methods Improvement Construction Engineers, which I was

able to practically comprehend on site. I travelled in the belly dump- truck to actually realize the

haul time taken and the difficulties faced in maneuvering from and to the project.

In conclusion, the experience developed me and academically well as personally. It definitely

served as platform to develop my skills and knowledge. After this experience, I have few

suggestions to the department. Kindly consider the following suggestions and it would help the

up-coming batches of students.

1. Tilos is a German software and is slowly trending in the Industry. Basic knowledge about

this software can be included in the curriculum which will open more opportunities for the

students.

2. Internship is the best way to gain practical knowledge and to understand how the theory is

put into practice. But unfortunately all students don’t get this opportunity. My personal

suggestion would be to include site visits to the on-campus projects in the curriculum. This

opens the student’s view of the construction Industry and the learning would be much more

practical.