In November 2019 JK Williams achieved an industry milestone by successfully slip forming the “Grated Trench Drain” on The Northern Road Upgrade.
This ingenious idea has been in the works since 2016 when we were invited to tender on several civil construction packages for Lendlease Engineering for The Northern Road Stage 2 upgrade works. Portions of this work included the installation of 14km grated trench drains using proprietary products with preformed channel and cast-iron grating. The customary placement method was by form and pour every metre at a painfully slow rate. We analyzed the design and knew there had to better way, pouring 14km of trench grating by hand could not be a viable option both from a budget and efficiency perspective. Since that moment we began the development of a slip formed option to pour a grated drain. With conceptual feedback from the Lend Lease project team at Stage 3 The Northern Road and RMS, we successfully undertook a series of trials using galvanized grated drains supplied by Weldlok. The system also permits variable channel and kerb profiles to be implemented.
This method can now deliver well over 100 metres per day instead of the conventional 30 meters per day of grated trench drain. A massive congratulations to Marc Boere, Tim Lyle, Lance Bennett and everyone else involved in the project, their commitment to challenging current methodologies, continually coming up with solutions to make this possible sees them setting a new industry standard.
Lend Lease Engineering have titled this the ‘Badu Muru’ drain meaning ‘water path’ in Dharug as part of their RMS proposal.
We would to thank the RMS and Lend Lease Engineering for trusting and supporting us through this process, affording us the opportunity to create something that will change the way these grated drains are constructed in the future.
