Towers Reach For The Skies

Eliott Engineering has recently fabricated and assembled two Doppler weather radar towers in Melbourne and Brisbane and is finalising a third radar tower for Sydney.

Eliott Engineering, a Melbourne based engineering company, won the contract to fabricate and assemble the Doppler radar towers for the Australian Bureau of Meteorology in early 2005 through GHD Pty Ltd consulting engineers.

These towers are part of the Federal Government’s five year, A$62.2 million commitment to replace older, less powerful radar systems throughout Australia.

GHD Pty Ltd provided Eliott Engineering with design drawings for the radar towers.

"We were contracted to take the towers from the detailed design stage through to final fabrication and transportation to site," Eliott Engineering Managing Director Anthony Eliott said. "We also won the erection component for Melbourne’s Laverton tower."

"The Melbourne and Brisbane towers are 20 metres high, 3.8 metres in diameter, and 7.2 metres in diameter at the widest point of the conical section at the top.

"A radar dish sits on top, protected by a 13 metre diameter golf ball like fibreglass structure called a radome."

The Melbourne tower was erected in Laverton in January, while the Brisbane tower was erected at Mt Stapylton in October 2005.

Mr Eliott said the Sydney tower is due to be erected in the northern suburb of Terrey Hills in the second half of 2007, subject to final development approval. It may require additional sections, and could be up to 30 metres high.

"The first tower was challenging because of time and transport limitations," he said. "We had to make the steel sections small enough to be transported easily by road and erected on a mountainous site, yet large enough to be cost effective during the fabrication phase."

The towers are made up of a bolt cage foundation, base, column, conical sections, radar and fibreglass radome. They are each equipped with a new high performance Doppler weather radar to provide information on wind changes, rain and severe storms.

"Most of the tower structure, the column and conical sections, is made from about 50 to 60 tonnes of Grade 350 XLERPLATE® steel," Mr Eliott said. "Smaller items such as the spiral stairs, ladders and maintenance crane have been made from structural steel."

He said Eliott Engineering is a loyal user of Australian made products, sourcing its BlueScope Steel products through distributors Smorgon Steel and OneSteel Steel and Tube.

Part of the Eliott Group, Eliott Engineering specialises in small to large scale forming and fabrication work for the power generation, mining, construction, transportation and defence industries.