Four large BHS mixers for a land-reclamation project in Hong Kong

April 2024

The reference at a glance

Project

Production of maritime concrete for the TKO Area 137 project

Technology

Four BHS twin-shaft batch mixers of type DKX 5.00

Operating site

Junk Bay, Hong Kong

Industry

Buildingmaterials

Application

Mixing special concrete for dams to reclaim land from the sea

Solution

The BHS twin-shaft batch mixers create especially durable concrete by ensuring high mix homogeneity through intensive material exchange.

Hong Kong is in the midst of a housing crisis. The megacity is bursting at the seams, with the government always on the lookout for new properties. Many residents also depend on living near the city center, in close proximity to its towering financial headquarters. To address this problem, Hong Kong has been working to reclaim land from adjacent bay areas for many years. The TKO project in the east of the city is part of this effort. For this prestigious project, BHS-Sonthofen has supplied four large twin-shaft batch mixers of type DKX 5.00 for the production of concrete.

Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world, which makes providing sufficient housing an almost herculean task. In the 1980s, the Hong Kong government converted the eastern new territories of Hong Kong's Tseung Kwan O (TKO) within Junk Bay into residential areas by reclaiming land from the sea. The latest development in this region is the TKO Area 137 project. This formerly rural area is currently being transformed into a vibrant urban center through significant investment in infrastructure, including bridges, subways, roads, and community facilities by the Hong Kong government.

For TKO Area 137, the city's Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD) plans to reclaim an additional 50 acres from the sea to add to the approximately 100 existing acres. By 2030, the site will be home to some 50,000 housing units for 135,000 people. In addition to filling in sand and gravel to create new ground, concrete dams will be built to hold back the water. To this end, a special, denser than usual concrete is being used. Its special composition requires high-quality materials such as silica fume, very fine slag powder and very fine fly ash.

High mixing quality for maritime concrete

Production of this concrete requires the use of special machinery. BHS-Sonthofen's reputation in the industry was an important factor in the selection of the company as contractor for this project. In 2023, BHS-Sonthofen delivered four twin-shaft batch mixers of type DKX 5.00, which will supply the concrete required when construction starts in 2024. These mixers are characterized by excellent mix homogeneity through intensive material exchange and form the heart of the TKO Area 137 project. For BHS-Sonthofen, this marked the first time that such large quantities of concrete for maritime construction had been mixed with BHS mixers on an infrastructure project.

And with many land-fill projects underway in Hong Kong in the coming years, this will most likely become just the first of many projects of its kind that uses mixing technology from BHS-Sonthofen.