Tools & Resources
A Shed Load Of Cattle
This cattle pavilion's roof is made from 144 metre long continuously rolled ARAMAX roof panels made from GALVASPAN® G550 steel.
| Location: | Carcoar, New South Wales |
| Country: | Australia |
| Client: | Central Tablelands Livestock Exchange |
| Engineer: | Brice Engineers |
| Products Used: |
GALVASPAN® G550 Steel |
A new trend is emerging in livestock selling: the closing of small Council owned saleyards and the amalgamation of rural livestock catchment areas to allow development of super saleyards or Regional Livestock Exchanges.
The latest state of the art facility, the Central Tablelands Livestock Exchange near Carcoar in New South Wales, is approaching completion and features an 82 metre by 223 metre sheep pavilion and a 109 metre by 144 metre cattle pavilion.
Although not as long as the sheep pavilion (which was rolled in two 111.5 metre lengths), the cattle pavilion is grabbing headlines thanks to its 144 metre long continuously rolled ARAMAX roof panels.
"We believe this could be a new world record for the longest continuous rolled sheet," said Norm Brice, managing director of Brice Engineers.
"It's 20 metres longer than the sheets on Britain's Royal Mail Building and over 40 metres longer than Australia's previous record of 101.5 metres on the Canberra Airport VIP Hangar."
Townsville based Brice Engineers constructed both pavilions using more than 380 tonnes of GALVASPAN® G550 steel to rollform the ARAMAX long spanning roof.
"We have the manufacturing rights to ARAMAX in Australia and New Zealand, which is ideal for large projects like this," Mr Brice said.
The company is also planning other Livestock Exchange projects, including the Northern New South Wales Livestock Exchange near Tamworth, which should start construction in June 2008 and have 23,000 square metres under roofs. Another, the South East Queensland Livestock Exchange near Toowoomba, is a 30,000 square metre project scheduled to begin construction later this year.
The ARAMAX profile is available in ZINC HI-TEN® steel, ZINCALUME® steel or COLORBOND® steel and allows reductions in conventional structural framing because it permits spans of up to 20 metres. This results in significant savings in the cost of materials, fabrication, and installation.
The panels were roll formed on site (which also offered benefits in reduced transport costs) and fixing brackets were then attached to each sheet before they were placed on mobile run out trolleys and hoisted into place by nine centrally controlled winches. Between 15 and 20 sheets were rolled and erected per day.
"The long panels are less susceptible to wind - and therefore to swing, because they're suspended from shorter cables and winched up into place," Mr Brice said.
"It makes the building process more manageable. And if the project is designed to integrate structure and cladding like this one was, then it's also more cost effective."
