BHP Billiton, the World’s largest diversified resources company and owner of Iron Ore operations throughout Western Australia, enlisted the help of RMD Australia to expand its operations in the region.
As part of its self entitled $1.85 billion Australian dollar ‘Rapid Growth Project 4’, which will increase its Iron Ore mining capacity to 155 million tonnes per year, BHP Billiton awarded the $27 million contract to build a new screening plant, crushing station and coarse ore stockpile facility, to specialist Australian contractor Macmahon Holdings Limited.
The project, that also included a myriad of plinths and bases for conveyors and rail lines, the large scale crushing station and coarse ore stockpile facilities, required the use of formwork and falsework to construct the thick walls and slabs required for the design.
The remote nature of the location of the facilities in the Pilbara region in the north of Western Australia, meant that the movement of equipment to the site required rigorous planning and built in redundancy, in order to ensure work was not interrupted by the need to source equipment from the nearest RMD Australia branch a considerable distance away in Perth.
Commenting on the project RMD Australia marketing manager, Phil Burrows said: “With any large scale construction programme like the ‘Rapid Growth Project 4’, there are numerous activities taking place at any one time that depend on each other in order for the project to progress.”
Given just seven months to complete the formwork and falsework stages of the project, RMD Australia began work onsite in February 2008, shipping in thousands of tonnes of equipment on hire, including Alshor Plus, Megashor, Rapid Shor and Rapid Stage shoring to the site. To support the main wall formwork, steel Superslim soldiers and aluminium Alform beams were also included in the product mix. With design changes altering the formwork requirements part way through the project, the challenge for RMD Australia was to ensure the programme time did not slip.
Phil: “In all the project required the construction of two main structures. The 225m by 105m crushing station with walls up to four metres high and 750mm thick and the larger ‘Coarse Ore Stockpile’ building, measuring 650m by 102m.
“Although the project was complex, the main challenge came two weeks prior to commencing the erection of the upper slab falsework. Due to a design change of the cast in chutes, which meant that they would incorporate a support frame already attached to them, limiting the space available around the chute, we were faced with a total redesign of our falsework system. The space limitation meant that our design team had to work quickly to find a solution that could be erected safely and cope with the pressures of the upper slab concrete pour, without damaging the chute.
“In order to achieve this we designed and manufactured, in record time, special cranked soldiers to allow support for the 45 degree angles in the upper slab. Thanks to the swift response of our design team, we were able to overcome the challenge and complete the final pour to finish the upper slab in mid September 2008 - right on schedule.”
