A NEW 38 megalitre reservoir for Sydney Water will provide additional storage at Minchinbury for one of the fastest growing areas in the city’s west. Saunders International is constructing the new 58m diameter reservoir adjacent to a similar Sydney Water storage built in 1975. More than 715t of steel from BlueScope Steel has gone into the fabrication of the latest tank, which is scheduled for commissioning in August.
Construction of the Minchinbury reservoir involved extensive use of automatic welding machines to do the bulk of the horizontal and vertical welding required. “We have accumulated a lot of experience with single-pass automatic welding machines for reservoirs and large storage tanks for the petroleum industry,” says project manager Imma Kathir. “The equipment we use delivers consistent vertical welds on-site and can handle vertical joint welding on plates from 12 mm to 50 mm in thickness.”
The Minchinbury reservoir design incorporates six strakes which vary from 3,000 mm in height at the base to 2,240 mm at the top. Thickness of the steel plates reduces in steps from 32 mm on the bottom strake to 8 mm at the top of the reservoir. “For this project we managed to increase the pace of construction and reduce the amount of time our crew members are required to work at heights,” says Kathir. The main steelwork erection phase for the reservoir is now complete, but pipework, electrical work, surface treatment and inter-connection with the existing reservoir are still to be carried out.
Source: Construction Contractor
