A group of local and foreign contractors yesterday urged the government to consider building “intelligent bridges” when reconstructing structures destroyed by Typhoon Morakot in southern Taiwan.
London-based Arup Group Ltd, which is known for its design of the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne and the “Bird’s Nest” in Beijing, said yesterday it was willing to share its architectural expertise and take part in the reconstruction of Shuangyuan Bridge (雙園大橋), which connects Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties, as a modern cable-stayed bridge pre-installed with a monitoring system.
HIGH-TECH
“Such a high-tech bridge, pre-installed with a global positioning system [GPS], will signal an alert to ensure the safety of bridge users,” Arup vice chairman Andrew Chan (陳嘉正) told a media briefing yesterday.
Based on data collected by the GPS and weather conditions, such as forecast rain and wind velocity, the bridge’s administrator can monitor and decide when to close the bridge, he said.
The monitoring system can also provide a health reading of the bridge during routine maintenance, he said.
Chan, however, yesterday said it was premature to estimate the cost of building such a bridge.
Tseng Ching-tsung (曾景琮), vice president of RSEA Engineering Corp (榮民工程公司), said the government should not hold separate bids for the design and construction of the bridge because it creates problems for contractors who may have to contend with an “infeasible design.”
SINGLE BID
Instead, the government should combine the two into a single bid open to design-and-construction teams to accelerate and ensure efficient construction, he said.
Chiu Fu-sheng (邱復生), chairman of Taiwan Land Development Corp (台開), which is a local partner of Arup, yesterday expressed interest in working as a coordinator for the bridge project.
However, he said it was too early to say whether all three companies would jointly bid for the project.
He also said the companies’ proposed bridge could be a model for the rebuilding of 70 bridges that collapsed in the wake of the typhoon.
On Ireland’s blustery western seaboard, researchers are gleefully flying giant kites — not for fun, but in the hope of generating renewable electricity and sparking a “revolution” in wind energy. “We use a kite to capture the wind and a generator at the bottom of it that captures the power,” said Padraic Doherty of Kitepower, the Dutch firm behind the venture. At its test site in operation since September 2023 near the small town of Bangor Erris, the team transports the vast 60-square-meter kite from a hangar across the lunar-like bogland to a generator. The kite is then attached by a
Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), a metal casing supplier owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday announced plans to invest US$1 billion in the US over the next decade as part of its business transformation strategy. The Apple Inc supplier said in a statement that its board approved the investment on Thursday, as part of a transformation strategy focused on precision mold development, smart manufacturing, robotics and advanced automation. The strategy would have a strong emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), the company added. The company said it aims to build a flexible, intelligent production ecosystem to boost competitiveness and sustainability. Foxconn
Leading Taiwanese bicycle brands Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械) and Merida Industry Co (美利達工業) on Sunday said that they have adopted measures to mitigate the impact of the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration. The US announced at the beginning of this month that it would impose a 20 percent tariff on imported goods made in Taiwan, effective on Thursday last week. The tariff would be added to other pre-existing most-favored-nation duties and industry-specific trade remedy levy, which would bring the overall tariff on Taiwan-made bicycles to between 25.5 percent and 31 percent. However, Giant did not seem too perturbed by the
TARIFF CONCERNS: Semiconductor suppliers are tempering expectations for the traditionally strong third quarter, citing US tariff uncertainty and a stronger NT dollar Several Taiwanese semiconductor suppliers are taking a cautious view of the third quarter — typically a peak season for the industry — citing uncertainty over US tariffs and the stronger New Taiwan dollar. Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科技) said that customers accelerated orders in the first half of the year to avoid potential tariffs threatened by US President Donald Trump’s administration. As a result, it anticipates weaker-than-usual peak-season demand in the third quarter. The US tariff plan, announced on April 2, initially proposed a 32 percent duty on Taiwanese goods. Its implementation was postponed by 90 days to July 9, then
RSS