John Holland incorporates BarChip fibre reinforced concrete do deliver a 20% saving at the Parkes water treatment plant project.

Parkes Shire Council commissioned the Design and Construction of new Water and Sewerage Treatment Plants to service the growing demands of the Parkes and Peak Hill townships. The existing water treatment plant had insufficient capacity to supply the required quantity and quality of potable water to meet the projected demand of the area into the future.

John Holland Contractors were awarded the contract to construct the water and sewerage treatment plants which included drying pans, pump stations, new onsite offices as well as internal roads at each facility. John Holland took an innovative approach when planning construction and looked for technologies that could deliver the project ahead of schedule and reduce costs for their clients. One of these technologies was synthetic fibre concrete reinforcement. Initially, the internal roads were designed with traditional steel reinforcement. John Holland put forward a case to change to BarChip fibre reinforced concrete paving.

To replace the original SL81 steel mesh, John Holland and BarChip created a design in accordance with the UK Concrete Society’s Technical Report 34 (TR34) demonstrating that 4kg/m3 of BarChip48 fibre was a suitable alternative. There were concerns initially about the workability and finish of an FRC pavement, however, early site trials removed these concerns and showed the desired concrete finish could be easily achieved with normal techniques.

A review of the construction costs associated with each method illustrated that by changing to BarChip fibre reinforcement, John Holland reduced the cost of road construction for their client by over 20%.