Geomarine completed the construction of the concrete floors for the waste project in April using a specialist concrete mix developed to deal with the extreme service conditions found in waste plants.

The design of the floors was developed by Geomarine and their subcontractor Level Best Flooring in collaboration with Ronez and main contractor Amec Foster Wheeler’s designers. The highly efficient solution was an example of what can be achieved through close collaboration between the design and delivery teams.

The floors presented a number of challenges including the requirement for them to be ‘laid to falls’ to internal drainage, have a high tolerance power-floated finish, demonstrate no intermediate joints, be able to deal with punching shear from the bearing piles together with the extreme abrasion from the 20T front-loaders scraping the floor and aggressive leachates from the waste.

After investigating a number of options a highly efficient and durable solution was developed using steel fibre reinforcement with a specialist microsilica cement-replacement additive to provide the necessary strength, abrasion resistance and chemical resistance.

3,300m2 of floors comprised of almost 2,000T of concrete were successfully laid in five days using the latest robotic screeding machines by Level Best and Geomarine’s teams led by Maarten Angenent.