Adelaide Desalination Plant
Location:
Port Stanvac, South Australia
Contract:
Alliance
Customer:
South Australian Water
Duration:
41 months
Safeguarding Adelaide's urban water supplies
Built Environs played a key part in the planning and delivery of the building works, working with the design process team to install the pipework and plant, liaising with numerous local and international organisations to expedite the design and construction of building works across an extremely complex site.
Built Environs constructed two 10,500 m2 process buildings, each containing 50 gigalitre per annum reverse osmosis and filtration equipment. 13 buildings were constructed to cater for administration areas, pump stations, a chemical plant, administration facilities and the permanent visitor’s centre (the Kauwi Interpretive Centre).
Each main process building was 114m long, 94m wide and 12m high, with interlocking service trenches, slabs of varying levels (services trench bases, gallery bases, ground slabs and suspended slabs) and areas of post-tensioned slabs. Steel and architecturally finished panels completed the building. To ensure the desalination plant was built to last, high-performance concrete, steel coatings and roofing systems were used which were able to cope with the challenging marine and chemical environment, and paid attention to detail in their design, materials selection and construction techniques.
Fast Facts:
- Time and access restrictions required prefabrication of many elements
- A 600t crane installed precast lift base and the pre-fabricated lift shafts
- Rainwater from roof drainage is collected and stored in a 25kL underground tank and used as a non-potable water supply
