Falch East Japan Association for Water Jet Construction
Established on April 15, 2022, currently has 19 member companies, and is promoting activities to improve water jet skills.
In Japan, where about 10 billion m3 of concrete structures were built during the period of rapid economic growth, and many structures are now deteriorating over time and repair work is being carried out all over the country. Generally, chipping with a concrete breaker has been used to remove the deteriorated part, but the issue of early re-deterioration due to the occurrence of microcracks has become a problem. Removal of deteriorated parts of concrete by water jet is an excellent technology for controlling the occurrence of microcracks in the concrete base materials. It is expected that the controlling of the occurrence of microcracks will contribute to the prevention of re-deterioration of infrastructure at an early stage and the extension of the service life of concrete structures.
Falch’s (Germany) water jet machine is a machine that is lightweight and has excellent workability. Safety functions such as automatic stop in an emergency and accident prevention by electronic control are substantial. In addition, accessories such as semi-automatic robots have been developed to support the removal of a wide variety of deteriorated parts of concrete. We believe that the widespread use of Falch’s system will lead to a reduction in life cycle costs and a leveling of the construction quality for removing deteriorated parts.
However, in view of the public works currently being carried out, those expressways managed by NEXCO East Japan, water jet chipping is 100% adopted, but the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has just started adopting it only for bridge structures. In addition, when it comes to other administrations, it is in the situation of non-adoption. Reasons for the lack of adoption include lack of construction experience, high construction costs, and unleveled prices. We believe that it is the mission and responsibility of the construction industry to popularize the water jet chipping method and keep infrastructure, which is a valuable asset of the people, in service for a long time.
Therefore, companies in the eastern Japan region that own Falch’s WJ machines shared the philosophy and established an organization to extend the life of infrastructure and contribute to society through SDGs activities.
We are working to improve the quality of repairing concrete structures with the aim of popularizing the WJ method.
- Improvement of chipping technology
- Improve maintenance of Falch machines and accessories
- Establishment of standard construction price based on performance and regulation of Falch system.
We will strive to develop infrastructure that can be used safely for a long time even after the repair of concrete structures.