CSIRO Birdcage Refurbishment – Platipus® Utility Systems

CSIRO – the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Canberra is one of the largest and most diverse scientific research organisations in the world. As part of the refurbishment of a protective netting for research and development for growing wheat in Australia, Platipus® anchoring systems were used to secure and hold down a large netting protection arrangement against rodents and vermin.

Design

A total of 34 holding down anchoring points were designed and detailed to secure a large protective netting enclosure area of 30m x 55m. Each anchor point was driven to a maximum depth of 2m and Proof load tested on site to 30kN (3tons). A Platipus B6 Utility Anchoring system (with built in hard eye arrangement) was chosen and comprises of a plastic impregnated tendon of composite solid section of 7 x 7 galvanised wire tendon and impregnated and covered with a black UV inhibited polyethylene. This system effectively with stands abrasion and abusive treatment and is also highly resistant to extreme soil conditions.

Installation

Each Platipus anchoring system was easily driven, load locked and tested with a 3t excavator and mounted breaker and all 34 anchor systems completed over a period of 2 days.

The Platipus anchoring systems were chosen and deployed for the following main features & benefits:

• A major driving force for using the B6 Utility System was its speed and ease of installation
• A bespoke, unique and highly durable anchoring system for application
• Minimum amount of specialist resources required on site to install and immediately load test the anchoring systems