Chapter 6
I Construction During The Settlement Years
II The Use Of Timber As A Structural Material
III Structural Steel
IV Concrete Technology
V Housing
VI Industrialised Pre-cast Concrete Housing
VII Ports And Harbours
VIII Roads
IX Heavy Foundations
X Bridges
XI Sewerage
XII Water Engineering
XIII Railways
XIV Major Buildings
XV Airports
XVI Thermal Power Stations
XVII Materials Handling
XVIII Oil Industry
i All Welded Storage Tanks
ii Insulated Fuel Oil Pipeline
iii Wartime Concrete Tanks
iv The Cobia 2 Sub-sea Completion
v Mackerel and Tuna Platforms
vi Snapper Post-Trenching Plough
vii The North West Shelf Project Plough
XIX The Snowy Mountains Scheme
XX The Sydney Opera House
XXI The Sydney Harbour Bridge
XXII Hamersley Iron
XXIII North West Shelf
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The North West Shelf Project Plough
The 134 km trunk-line which carried gas and condensate from North Rankin 'A' platform to shore posed a major technical challenge for the North West Shelf Project which led to the development of the biggest pipeline stabilising plough used anywhere in the world to date. Conventional approaches could not handle areas of outcropping limestone along the pipeline route and could have led to the pipeline being, in some areas, suspended from pinnacles of hard material. Though the concept of an undersea plough was not new, it had rarely been used and generally on short lines.Extensive development of the concept was undertaken including construction and testing of one-fifth and one-third scale models. The final version weighed 340 tonnes. It straddled and supported the 1016 mm trunkline, lowering the line into the trench as it was pulled by a lay-barge. Ploughing was carried out in November/December 1982 at an average rate of 3.7 km per day, taking 10 days less than scheduled and saving $30-40 million over conventional alternatives (Fig. 73).
Organisations in Australian Science at Work - Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme
People in Bright Sparcs - Gorrie, A. W.
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Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering |  |
© 1988 Print Edition page 419, Online Edition 2000
Published by Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, using the Web Academic Resource Publisher
http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/421.html