Brett Aggregates - North Sea Terminal

Brett Aggregates are the UK’s largest independent building materials group, handling over 5m tonnes of aggregate and producing up to a million cubic metres of concrete every year.

As part of their development plans to their Ready Mixed Concrete & Screed site in Cliffe, they required the design and fabrication of a new radial conveyor, the size of which would place it amongst the largest in Europe.

SGL were appointed as the structural designer working in tandem with the fabricator Atherton Material Handling (AMH). A working concept was drawn up between parties which was then input into a Finite Element Model (FEM) by SGL. Our talented and experienced engineers drew upon their knowledge to optimise the concept design, bringing down material weight significantly from that of the first concept. A mixture of tension only cross bracing and compression/tension bracing was employed, along with a central triangular braced tower which allowed the 67m conveyor to cantilever approximately 23m.

Detailed wind analysis was performed on the structure due to the dynamic nature of the conveyor being that it is not ordinarily fixed to a foundation. Various loading assessments were carried out to represent the dynamic loading patterns the structure will likely experience throughout its design life, ensuring safe and consistent performance under all foreseeable scenarios.