RAAF Aircraft Hangar - Australia
ESC Steel Structures was contracted by one of its regional partners in Australia to produce over 500 metric tons of structural steel prefabricated building system for an aircraft hangar to be used for the Pilot Training Systems Centre in Australia.
This project is part of the overall investment to deliver facilities, infrastructure and airfield works for the implementation of the aircraft which is aimed to be used as part of the Pilot Training System. Up to 27 training aircraft could be parked inside the hangar. The structure was designed to have sufficient structural capacity for both wind and earthquake loadings.
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The main project standard for the steel pre-engineering building structure was Australian Standard AS 4100 for materials, construction, fabrication and erection. The welds also required different extents of visual, radiographic and magnetic particle inspection as per AS 1554.1. The steel grades used for the sections and plates varied between Grade 250 and Grade 300. All components delivered were galvanized for corrosion protection. The project required all components to be annealed to over 650°C before the hot-dip galvanizing with a final coating mass of over 600g/m2.
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Prior to production, ESC completed a comprehensive Inspection & Test Plan (ITP) with a breakdown of all the processes which included: welder qualification review, raw material inspection, component dimensional inspection, weld inspection and coating inspection. Strategic review, witness and certify hold points were incorporated for each of the stages. A 3rd party inspector was selected for the project as well by ESC and accepted by the client. After several iterations working with both the project client and consultant, the ITP was agreed and approved well before production started.
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The aircraft hangar was fabricated in its partner's workshops in Australia which is part of the ESC Group.
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ESC successfully completed the full steel fabrication in May 2017.