CISDI achieved numerous industry firsts during its creation of a unique new environment-friendly stockyard for Rizhao Steel in China.

It is the first large-scale metallurgical industry stockyard to be fully enclosed with a membrane structure.

Membrane structures have numerous advantages over regular enclosures, which are usually made from coloured steel. They are more lightweight, have better resistance to corrosion and require less maintenance. In addition, they have a more pleasant appearance and give better access to daylight.

Built by CISDI on an EPC basis, the new stockyard went into operation late last year, becoming the largest single floor membrane building in China and CISDI’s first demonstration of utilising new material for stockyards.

The structure has a latticed shell over which a membrane skin is stretched and the stockyard project required an online build which was complex and challenging. Site space was also at a premium with complex existing facilities coupled with a tight schedule.

CISDI applied a number of advanced technologies to master the complexities of the new materials and processes it was working with. They ranged from large-area tensile membrane design and installation to computational fluid dynamics-based flow field simulation and finite element analysis strength simulation.

To ensure the work did not interfere with production, CISDI kept meticulously to a tight time schedule, completing the joining of the first latticed shells in just over two months - the fasted construction cycle of its kind. The entire project took 220 days.

The environmentally-friendly Rizhao Steel stockyard has latticed shells and membrane structures