Miles Macadam installed 6,500m² of Hardicrete™ to provide a hard–wearing floor for a new multi-purpose storage shed at Portbury Port.
The new storage shed had been built on an existing external flexible pavement on the side of the quay. Rather than excavate the existing pavement and install a new reinforced concrete floor, the existing surface was over-laid with an asphalt regulating layer prior to installing 40mm depth of Hardicrete™ grouted macadam surface course. This provided a cost saving and due to the rapid installation time of Hardicrete™, a grateful reduction to the programme.
The 6,500m²of Hardicrete™ was installed in 6 days with an additional 48 hours curing. Hardicrete™ provides a heavy duty surface with similar properties to concrete; the surface is impermeable and chemical resistance. Initially the shed will be used to store steel coils weighing 21t each, handled by an overhead gantry and large forklifts to load the coils on to HGVs for distribution.
In the future there may be a change of use for the shed in order to store bulk storage items such as grain, animal feed or fertiliser. In this instance large front-end loaders are typically used to load or move the product. This typically leads to a deterioration of the construction joints of conventional concrete floors. There are no such issues with Hardicrete™ as it is a jointless material whilst sharing similar wear properties to concrete.
Miles Macadam has previously installed a similar fertiliser storage shed in nearby Avonmouth docks which has proved a great success.
The last image featured on the slider to the right was taken in July 2021. Almost one year post-surfacing, no signs of deterioration and still a durable surface course for the location.