The Herald Sun (April 27)- $150 Million Facelift

Brauer College development

This is a new development in the grounds of Brauer College in Warrnambool, situated on Caramut road. Unfortunately I wasn't home to capture when the pre-cast panels went up in the background but was able to take photos of the portal frame.

This building is a new technical college in the Brauer grounds and has been made from two different types of commercial building practices. I'd assume the use of pre-cast panels and a steel portal frame is to differentiate two areas that will have different uses. I'd suggest that the portal frame is the area for classrooms whilst the panels are where workshops will be held.

Edit: These pictures were taken on April 27

TAC building- Brougham Street

In the above image the falsework is visibly supporting the framework.



The above two images are of a concrete column being lifted into place by a crane. As it got closer to it's position three men arrived to try and line it up, a difficult process I would imagine.

Edit: These photos were taken on April 23rd

Construction site

This is a site down Gordon Avenue, it's made of pre-cast concrete panels. In the detail pictures the propping is evident, two per panel. These resist the wind loads and also the construction loads. The props are then connected to cast in inserts.

Pre-cast concrete panel-end wall (tute 5)

pre-cast concrete panel (tute 4)

geelong carousel

end wall section of a steel portal frame (tute 3)

As far as steel framing goes, the portal frame is the most common. The load is shared across the frame but isn't absorbed into the structure, instead all loads are transferred to the footing.

One of the great advantages of portal framing is that it can span long distances, (15-45m), therefore a building can have large open spaces without the interference of columns.

At times of great development it is somewhat surprising that portal frame sizes are governed by the size of the truck transporting them. If the frames are too large then consideration would have to be given to special transporting or additional field splices. Problems come with using field splices though because these joints weaken the overall beam. To counter this they are usually placed as close as possible to a dead load.