The K.D Stewart Centre

The K.D Stewart Centre at Deakin Waurn Ponds has a large gym that has a roof supported by steel beams with a brick supporting facard.

I'm not sure whether the Supporting steel it a portal fram as it has a knee joint to transfer the bending moment down, however it also looks like a truss has been used to span the large distance.
Here you can see the bracng and additional suppport.

Issue: Ballarat's Cracking

I went home for the weekend to Ballarat for the first time in ages and I noticed heaps and heaps of new cracks in the houses in my street, especially the brick homes. I was also shocked to see the dry crusty surface of the lake I used to sail on. I thought about this more and concluded that drought is having a great effect on the soil and foundations of the houses. The lack of water is causing the houses near the lake to crack as the soil and foundations dramatically move. Millions of dollars of structural damage has occurred due to the drought as well as a loss of habitat and ecosystems.

"The Council are keen to try and get as much water as they can for the lake, and they're going to have to either get that donated, or purchase it, and that will take a little while, so we've stepped in as Central Highlands Water and agreed to provide 150 megalitres basically as soon as we can, so over the next day or two, we'll open the old pipe that hasn't been opened for the last five years, and see what needs to be done there and get some water flowing through it," says John Barnes.

Model Development

Here you can see the box gutter, connecting with the concrete slab. The cliplock roofing is angled at 2 degrees and flows into the gutter. You can also see the safety mesh, insulation and 'Z' purlin.
You can see the cleat that's welded to the 'I' beam. The 'Z' purlin was made from metal sheeting and i bent it using a metal bender. You can see the bolts that connect it to the cleat and the 10mm gap that raises the purlin off the rafter.

My model is coming along. I've had heaps of fun learning to use all the tools such as the metal bender, tin snips, ect.. Initially I found the model difficult to understand, however by making a physical model I now understand how all the elements fit together. I also clarified some elements such as the way the ‘Z’ Purlins face and the order of the safety mesh and insulation.

Transport Issue

We were driving into uni today and we're so excited when saw these massive trucks that were transporting the precast concrete panels. Only a construction student would be that happy to see a truck. Crazy stuff.

Anyway when it approached the next corner it struggled to complete a U-turn in the space provided. One issue when ordering concert panels is to ensure that thy can be transported to the sight, therefore it’s recommended that concrete panels are no lager than approximately 9m X 4m.

In my photo’s you can see the truck attempting to do a U-turn to access the sight.

Spencer Street Station

I went to melbourne today and i'm still facinated by the roof over spencer street station. I found the best website that shows the step by step development of the roof. It's worth checking out.

http://www.vicsig.net/index.php?page=infrastructure§ion=majorprojects&project=spencerst

This was one of my favourite images.

When I took these photo’s I noticed that although it was a complicated structure, it's very repetitive. Perhaps the structured is so detailed and complex because of the large span and curved surface. The construction procses developed by deviding the roof into heaps of small sections which were latter held in place by a crane and welded.


This is an arial view of the roof. It's pretty cool.

Bunnings Visit

Site Visit to – BUNNINGS, 237 Colac Rd, Waurn Ponds

This photo of the knee joint connection of the portal frame with a box gutter is simular to what I am doing for my major project. I notice the hunching that gives extra support to the beam so it can have a larger open span. We can clearly see the bracing, the bolts and welding that connect the ‘I’ beams, the underside of a box gutter, extra stiffening between the flanges of the column, the purlins, cleats and the girts.

Shown in this photo is the apex connection for north wall at Bunning’s warehouse. We can see the bolted connection of the rafter, as well as the hunching that adds additional strength. A central column, allows the warehouse to span a greater distance as us spreads the weight more evenly.

Site Drawings

Today i returned to the construction site on Settlement road. The construction manager, Chris was really helpfull and gave me some shop drawings and architectual details. He explained how each beam or concrete pannel is drawn up, and how to read the drawngs. It will be really usefull for the poster.This shop drawing shows the layout of my 'I' Beam. We can seen where the cleats and bolts are situated.
This shop drawing articulates the location of the roof bracing.
This shop drawing the is used to create my precast concrete pannel. You can see the location and sizes of elements that are precats such as the welding plate.