Spencer Street DFO

Spencer Street DFO is a portal frame structure with concrete panel walls. It has been architectually designed and highly engineered. Due to the level of architecture involved I was only given permission to take photographs if the Project Manager walked me around.

The structure of this frame is made from steel beams and columns. The roof structure consists of safety mesh, insulation, purlins, bracing rods, connection brackets such as cleats. However, this design is different to the basic portal frame as their are columns located throughout the building which have secondary supports which are on an approximate 45 degree angle. These struts/braces are connected to the beam with a steel pin. This connection looks as if there may be movement at this location as it is not bolted or welded. This type of connection is a very neat detail and looks impressive.

Purlins are attached to the rafters/beams with the use of cleats which are joined by welding. The purlins are attached to the purlins by bolting.

Towards the top of this column is a bracket that has been welded to it. A steel hinge plate has been welded to the end of the spanning member (beam). Steel leaves are welded to the ends of beams. These leaves have holes drilled out of them. The holes of the bracket and leaves are lined up and steel pin inserted to fix the beam to the column.

Intermediate columns, beams and braces are used to support the structure. The columns are installed first. The beams are then attached and fixed to other columns either side. The braces or struts are later fixed to primary beams when the roof primary structure is being constructed.

The column and beam are connected by bolting. Bracing and struts are connected by bolting. During fabrication the haunching, and brackets and welded in position.

A gutter can be seen in this photo with the stormwater draining pipe. Storm water pipes are fixed to the guttering at regular intervals. The pipe runs horizontally and is sloped at approx. 1:200 so that water can be drained away and ensures that no water remains stagnant in the pipework.

This photo shows a close up of the pin connection of the intermediate columns, beams and struts/braces. It is a much neater finish than when nuts and bolts are used.

Columns are fixed to a structural element below the tile flooring. It is possible that this column is fixed to a plinth below with the use of cast-in hold down bolts or chemset bolts. Another pour of concrete for the slab is poured over the plinth and bolts so that a flat slab is poured and tiles then fixed to the slab. A concrete pour is done directly over the conrete structure below.

Another method/process would be to bolt the column directly to the slab below (which is actually the ceiling of the first floor). It would be connected with chemset bolts. The slab would then be poured covering the base plate and bolts.

A form of glue is used to fix the tiles to the slab below. The spaces created between tiles are made with the use proprietary materials which are positioned between adjoining tiles. When the tiles are fixed in position grout is used to seal up the spaces with the use of a trowel like implement.