September_1967 — Page 47

Contracts awarded

HONG KONG GOVERNMENT

Construction of Ngau Tau Kok bus ter- Sunfok Construction minus. $188,488

Co.

Relaying of sewers in branch roads Chit Wing Construction off Belcher Street and the Praya. Co. $313,244

Construction of new stormwater drain Yau Wing Co. Ltd.

in Waterfront Road from Harcourt

Road to Tonnochy Road and Arsena! Street sewer duplication works. $385,603

Supply of asbestos cement goods to Tsing Yi Island Sau Mau Ping resettlement estate, Industries, Ltd. blocks 30 and 31, and estate school

7, stage II, Kowloon. $283,397

Supply and installation of 20 lifts for Fuji Engineering Co. blocks 20 to 25 inclusive at Sau Mau (HK) Ltd. Ping resettlement estate, stage II, Kowloon. $1,325,600

Construction of Tai Wan seawall, stage Maeda Construction I. $581,888

Co. Ltd.

Installation of one 1,500 g.p.m. pump Lee Tung Wo Ltd. set and pipework for Kai Tak seawater pump-house. $9,936

Construction of Wing Lung Street/- Tai Foo Co. Cheung Sha Wan Road

$825,823

sewer.

Supply and installation of 8 passenger Fuji Engineering Co. lifts in blocks 7 and 9 at Yau Tong (HK) Ltd. Bav Government low cost housing.

$465,200

Construction of Government low cost Goodman Corporation housing blocks A to F inclusive I and (E & B) Ltd.

J and estate schools Nos.

Wong Chuk Hang, Aberdeen.

$21,847,475

and 2 at

Construction of R.C. roof over Kwun Dickson Construction Tong Public Pier. $119,284

Books

Co.

Concrete Technology & Practice by W. H. Taylor. 2nd edition publish- ed by Angus & Robertson Ltd. (Sydney) A$10. 9 in. x 6 in. 650 pages (32 pages of photographs)

Based on the annual course of ad- vanced lectures given by the author at the Royal Melbourne Inst. of Tech- nology, this book forms a complete and comprehensive study of its sub- ject.

Although the book costs £A.5, Mr. Taylor makes sure that you get your money's worth of information on con- crete. All aspects of the subject are dealt with, from the use of group- ed frequency tables of compressive- strength results to the speed and direc- tion of rotation of concrete mixers.

After a page of history it sets about its subject in a logical manner discuss- ing the basic chemistry, analysis and testing of the main components of concrete. The chapter on mix-design has plenty of graphs and tables giving strengths for the variable proportions of materials used, and it is here in S.E. Asia that an important factor emerges. With the use of miscellane- ous national brands of cement and

Construction of sub-structure to New B. L. Wong & Co. Convalescent Ward Block, Kowloon Hospital. $397,681

Supply and installation of an air-con- Engineering Service ditioning plant and cold store at Queen

Mary Hospital (alteration to the exist-

ing building). $498,060

Supply of miniature air-break circuit Sumitomo Shoji breakers. $434,000

Supply of sewage screening plant for Wah Fu low cost housing estate sewer- age scheme. $134,337

Kaisha Ltd.

Shewan Tomes

(Traders) Ltd,

Supply and laying of vinyl asbestos The Riggs Venetian floor tiling at Queen Mary Hospital Blind Co. (alterations to existing building), Hong

Kong. $94,882

Sinking of a Borehole well for Fire The Hong Kong Well Services Training School, District Fire Boring & Engineering H.Q. and ambulance depot at Sek Co. Kong, New Territories. $12,280

Piling to foundations for additional Paul Lee Engineering quarters at Aberdeen Fire Station. Co., Ltd. $10,200

Supply and installation of a bed/pas- senger lift and a dumbwaiter for Tang Shiu Kin Hospital, Hong Kong. $108,000

Hitachi Elevator

Engineering (Hong Kong) Ltd.

Supply of asbestos cement goods for Tsing Yi Island Sau Mau Ping resettlement estate Industries Ltd. (Stage 1), blocks 19 & 20 and estate

school 2, Kowloon. $180,271

Supply of asbestos cement goods for Tsing Yi Island Shek Lei resettlement estate (Area Industries Ltd. "C"), block 7, New Territories. $134,683

Electricity supply for estate school at The China Light & Tsz Wan Shan Government low cost Power Co., Ltd. housing estate, Kowloon. $13,934

design-figures copied from text books there is a distinct possibility of errors creeping in.

To quote Mr. Taylor “In America, for instance, a U.S. gallon of water (8.33 lb) weighs five-sixths of an Im- perial gallon (10 lb.), a ton is equival- ent to 2,000 lb. as against an Imperial ton of 2,240 lb., and sieves are in A.S.T.M. designations. A bag of cement in U.S.A. and Australia is nominally of 1 cu. ft. and 94 lb. capa- city (24 bags per Imperial ton), whereas in U.K. it is of 1 cwt. size. Compressive strengths in America and Australia, unless stated otherwise, are based on capped standard cylin- ders, 6 in. dia. x 12 in. high, whereas in U.K. they are based on 6 in. cubes”. Although Mr. Taylor gives a conver- sion chart to evaluate cylinders with cubes one can appreciate that with the transference of all these figures to metric, as we shall have to do shortly, the problem will not be simplified.

After covering formwork, handling, placing, and curing the book goes on to testing, then under the heading of Durability, corrosion and cracking are discussed. One chapter of 24 pages is devoted to concrete floors and their problems followed by chapters on vibrated concrete and the manufac- ture of concrete pipes. It is here that readers may note that the centrifugal or vibro-spin process was originated

Far East Architect & Builder September, 1967

by Mr. W. R. Hume in 1910, a fact which helps explain the deserved popularity of such a name through- out S.E. Asia.

To list all the other aspects of con- crete covered by the book would take up as much space as the book's 14 page index but dealing with some of the more interesting chapters one notices a concrete surface produced by thermal texturing, which is a flame- spalling process whereby a flame from an oxy-acetylene descaling tip is used with, or without, a thin film of water coursing over the surface.

Underwater concreting is mention- ed and problems encountered by ex- tremes of weather are dealt with ranging from heating aggregate to mixing ice with the water.

Under Operational and Building Techniques, Mr. Taylor seems to have dumped all the miscellaneous aspects that came to mind as he wound up his book, for alongside one another we get cutting, and demolition of con- crete structures, termite-proof con- crete, efflorescence, terrazzo and net- work analysis.

Appendices of comparable Ameri- can, Australian and British standard specifications, a supervision check list, Bibliography and a Glossary of Terms terminate this excellent book.

D.V.T.

71