PRESIDENT’S COLUMN Engineers streamline
8 NSC
July/Aug 19
A ground-breaking ceremony has heralded the start
of construction for automotive manufacturer Integral
Powertrain’s new and purpose-built steel-framed
technical centre.
The 4,360m2 building is expected to be completed
by early 2020, and will require 200t of structural
steelwork, which will be fabricated, supplied and
erected by H Young Structures.
The technical centre is being created to meet the
company’s e-Drive business growth following its
success in developing electric motors and inverters
for firms such as McLaren, Aston Martin and Triumph
Motorcycles.
Integral Powertrain Director John McLean said:
“The new centre represents a major milestone for
Integral Powertrain. The new site is more than
three times the floor area compared to the existing
engineering centre, and will be used to house our
growing teams, provide new conference areas, much
greater stores and build capacity, a larger e-Drive test
centre, new materials and R&D facilities and larger
machining / fabrication areas.
As well as providing an excellent environment
for staff and clients alike, it will allow most of our
engineering and support teams to be located on one
site, bringing efficiency that will enable us to develop
innovative products to meet growing customer
demand in the e-Drive sector.”
Lead engineers on HS2’s Old Oak Common station,
WSP, have revealed a 27% reduction in the structural
steel needed for the station roof at the west London
super-hub.
Having undertaken a value engineering exercise
on the station designs in partnership with architects
WilkinsonEyre and SME Expedition Engineering, it was
concluded that structural thicknesses and profiles in the
roof could be modified to allow for less material.
The team said a total steel reduction of over 1,000t
is possible, which represents a significant reduction in
embodied carbon and a cost saving of £7M.
WSP Project Director Adrian Tooth said: “Taking the
benefits from wind tunnel testing and snow modelling,
we have been able to make small incremental changes
and reductions in material thicknesses of the roof
resulting in a significant saving in the cost of the
station.”
HS2 Programme Director Matthew Botelle said: “By
challenging the standard design approach, the team
have realised savings in the roof steelwork tonnage that
has significantly reduced cost, construction complexity
and embodied carbon.
“This work is a great example of how the latest
design thinking and techniques are being used on
the HS2 programme to provide best value to the UK
taxpayer.”
The roof at Old Oak Common comprises a series
of tapered vaults with glazed rooflights to provide
ventilation and daylight for the station.
Spanning up to 65m, the vaults are formed from
fabricated steel box section arches and are supported
on box section primary beams founded on tapered steel
columns.
Fabricated using weathering steel, the visible parts of
the roof steelwork will be painted for aesthetic reasons.
News
One of the ‘problems’ with technology today is that we
all get bombarded with information, which we either
delete or file away to look at later. And then we forget
about it. Even as BCSA’s President, I sometimes have
trouble keeping track of all the useful publications
that BCSA has produced. So I thought that this month,
I would provide you with a summary of some of the
really useful documents that BCSA has produced for
the industry recently.
Cost is a fundamental consideration in the selection
of structural frame material. As we all know, this
selection should be based on project specific costings,
but the challenge for cost consultants is to reconcile
fluctuations in material prices against tender price
data. The Costing Steelwork articles, published
quarterly in Building magazine, outline a number of
key cost drivers that should be considered in order to
make steel frame rates project specific, and provide
guidance on current cost ranges for different building
types and locations.
https://www.steelconstruction.info/
Cost_of_structural_steelwork
The New Steel Construction Technical Digest 2018
brings together all of the Advisory Desk Notes and
Technical Articles from the steel construction sector
published in NSC magazine last year. Advisory Desk
Notes are essential reading for all involved in the
design of constructional steelwork as they reflect
recent developments in technical standards or new
knowledge that designers need to be made aware
of. The longer Technical Articles offer more detailed
insights into what designers need to know.
https://www.steelconstruction.info/images/5/5a/
NSC_Technical_Digest_2018.pdf
Typical Welding Procedure Specifications for
Structural Steelwork outlines the most common
weld joint types, in material grades up to and
including BS EN 10025 – S460N, and details the route
to qualifying them in accordance with the current
European Standard. The book contains 20 preliminary
Welding Procedure Specifications and 49 partially
completed Welding Procedure Specifications.
https://www.steelconstruction.org/shop/typicalwelding
procedure-specifications-for-structuralsteelwork
second-edition/
We all agree that commercial teams should be
properly educated about construction law. A great
place to start is BCSA’s recently updated Construction
Contractual Handbook (5th edition). This
comprehensive Handbook aimed at sub-contractors
covers all the important aspects of construction law in
a compact and accessible way.
https://www.cip-books.com/product/
construction-contractual-handbook-5th-edition
Of course, BCSA also produces member only
guidance on a wide range of issues on an almost daily
basis, to guide its members on commercial, technical,
health & safety, training and business issues. These
are an important part of membership and ensure
that BCSA member companies are aware of new
regulations, understand what best practice looks like,
and have the knowledge to put it all into practice.
Tim Outteridge
BCSA President and Jamestown Manufacturing
HS2 station roof design
Ground broken on Milton Keynes
engine design centre
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