FACTORY AND WAREHOUSE CATEGORY WINNER Mr Price Distribution Centre, Safintra
The design of the new distribution centre for Mr Price was changed from tender stage to suit material availability at the time of construction. This also gave the opportunity for the steelwork contractor to get involved in the redesign and proposing alternatives that would meet the fast track program.
Steel was chosen as it was the only option in construction for the size of the warehouse and fast track construction program. The warehouse is the typical distribution centre design, with eaves columns, internal main house columns with girders spanning in one direction with trusses spanning at 90 º to the girders. Instead of having small monitors on the roof, it was decided that every alternate 30m bay would be raised 2.5m higher than the adjacent bay to form very large monitors, or simply a low bay, high bay design.
Special Aspects
• 10 weeks fabrication lead time prior to erection commencement.
• ± 1,000 tonnes of fabricated material on site prior to erection.
• 14 No. Cranes erecting steel + 4 No. slave cranes.
• 2 No. horse and trailers dedicated to moving steel on site.
• 90 day erection program
• 8 days of inclement weather – not claimable due to contract clause
• Actual erection days = 82 days including weekends and public holidays
• Total tons = 2,754 tonnes
• Average erection rate of 33.5 tonnes per day
• Most tons erected in one day = 76 tons
Unusually, this warehouse used 200 tons of circular hollow section bracing in the roof varying from as small as 114 x 4CHS right up to 406 x 10CHS. Although not yet installed, this distribution centre has been designed to have photovoltaic panels on the roof to generate enough electricity to be self sufficient.
In consultation with the steelwork contractors, the engineers redesigned the trusses and girders to suit material availability and the erection programme. The overall geometry of the trusses and girders was changed to suit normal transport conditions so as to avoid abnormal loads. The truss chords were made of back to back angles and spaced 200mm apart with the internal members comprising 200IPE and 200 x 75PFC. This lead to a very stiff truss which meant that erection on site would go much faster as spreader beams were avoided.
The main challenge in this project was, firstly, the early procurement of material in order to avoid delays in the construction programme. The second challenge was the logistical co-ordination of the 75,000 assemblies that needed to be fabricated, painted, delivered and erected on site.
The client and professional team, including main contractor, are extremely satisfied with overall delivery of the structural steel framing.
Client / Owner / Developer: Mr Price Group Limited Architect: Paton Taylor Architects Structural Engineer: Arup Quantity Surveyor: Edgecombe & Hayes Hill Principle Agent: Paton Taylor Architects Main Contractor: Stefanutti Stocks Building KZN Steelwork Contractor and Nominator: Avellini Impact Joint Venture( Avellini Bros / Impact Engineering) Structural Steel Detailers / Detailing Companies: 3DCon Steel Detailing; Structech 3D Modelling Cladding Supplier: Kingspan
82 Steel Awards