Site Visit 3:

New Shopping complex on Pakington st. Geelong

On this site visit I was fortunate enough to get a tour by the site manager. it was on a monday which is a regestered day off, so luckerly the site manager was in his office and had time to show me around and also talk about construction management in general.

The building is constructed using tilt up panels for walls. "Simon" the construction manager said they had put up 30 reinforced tilt up panels in one day. this was a good day he said but t shows how quickly this allows the construction to take place. it is a clear advantage over brick where the labour costs and the time taken to construct the same area of wall are far higher.

the panels in this construction were load baring members which the beams holding up the roof then bolted strait into.

here you can see the supports for the reinforced tilt up concrete panels that are neccissary to hold them in place before they are fixed and the building is braced.There are two methods used on this site for anchoring the supports for the tilt panels to the ground. one is to pour a 'dummy footing' that has no purpose but to hold the supports in the construction phase of the building. the other is a more convenient option and that is the screws. they go 1.5 meters into the ground and are put in place with an excavator and can be removed when they are not needed and reused unlike the 'dummy footing'.

Pre cast reinforced concrete tilt up panels are diverse and can come in shapes to suit any purpose. above you con see some basic whole for windows.

crane
joint

Steel joint to panel

post on pad footing