FEATURE SPONSOR
YORKSHIRE SPOTLIGHT
YORKSHIRE RENOWNED FOR TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE
Yorkshire has a proud history of technical excellence in many fields including steel and engineering and a major research centre was the British Steel Swinden Technology Center at Rotherham.
RESEARCH AND TESTING PROGRAMME – BRITISH STEEL It was here an interesting research and testing programme was entered into in the early 1980’s.
British Steel were losing market share to concrete in the bridge market as concrete was perceived to be cheaper to construct with a longer maintenance-free life over steel bridges, as steel bridges had to be repainted every seven to twelve years.
It was thought if a paint system could be designed to give a minimum twenty years maintenance-free life then steel would be competitive to concrete and so a search was instigated to find more advanced resin system than the then currently available Department of Transport paint systems.
SOLVENT FREE POLYURETHANE One material selected for the research and test programme was a solvent free polyurethane from a small specialist UK based manufacturer under the Acothane brand.
Some two years of laboratory testing was carried out including salt spray, humidity, impact and abrasion, flexibility, cathodic disbondment and long term accelerated weathering.
ENCOURAGING RESULTS
The Acothane formulation produced very encouraging results including the longest known hot salt spray test which ran for 9,000 hours until the uncoated back of the coated steel panel totally delaminated with no adverse effect to the coated surface.
The first new steel bridge to be selected for this new coating system was at Newburgh in Aberdeenshire, then operated by Grampian Regional Council, now Aberdeenshire Council.
CASE STUDY 1 – WATERSIDE BRIDGE The Waterside Bridge was fabricated and coated at the fabricators works in Glasgow and 1mm of Acothane spray applied overall during 1986 and the bridge site erected without coating damage and commission in 1987.
At the twenty years inspection in 2007 the inspectors report stated “The Bridge was in perfect condition and should expect continuous corrosion-free protection for another twenty years.”
The comment from the client was “The spray applied coating was as good as the day it was applied.”
Over a period from 1987 to 1996 over 200,000m2
of steel bridge structures were
coated with this system, many of which have been subsequently inspected and confirmed to be in perfect condition without the need for any remedial coating maintenance.
CASE STUDY 2 – ERSKINE BRIDGE Confidence was further gained by the first major bridge structure to be coated with Acothane in 1984 when the service lane steel panels were lifted and coated on site on the Erskine Bridge and subsequent inspections revealed no defects or coating breakdown.
This bridge now has thirty years proven maintenance-free performance and the Waterside Bridge has had subsequent inspections at twenty six years which again confirmed its maintenance-free status.
OFFSHORE NORTH SEA STRUCTURES There is a similar performance track record on offshore North Sea structures where the report from British Steel Swinden Technology Centre was used as a reference point for the offshore operators.
Acothane continues to be manufactured in the UK, at one time in Yorkshire and now on the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire border close to Yorkshire and offers the same long life maintenance-free performance for wind turbine towers and associated equipment.
Ray Sams Spencer Coatings
Click to view more info
www.windenergynetwork.co.uk
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