Cycleway depends on steel

Brisbane’s newest cycleway is the latest public asset to benefit from the use of a high-strength grade of steel product.

Work has finished on a key stretch of Brisbane cycleway that will connect the city with the Gateway Motorway off-ramp at Eight Mile Plains in the city’s south-east.

The 17km Veloway 1 (V1) is the missing link within Brisbane’s existing cycleway and will offer a safe 3m-wide route for commuting cyclists when it’s completed. The Queensland state government estimates that about 1600 cyclists a day use the V1 in its current form, up from approximately 1000 per day in 2011.

Construction of the V1 was divided into five stages with the most recent, Stage D (from O’Keefe Street in Woolloongabba to Lewisham Street in Annerley), opened to the public in December 2017.

Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads awarded the principal contract for the $5.1 million stage to Queensland Bridge and Civil. Included in this contract of works was the manufacture and erection of a 135m-long structural steel truss bridge over Juliette Street, construction of the concrete substructure and concrete cast in-situ deck, plus laying down of the 1300sqm of concrete bikeway between Cornwall and O’Keefe streets, and manufacture and placements of associated bridge caging, guardrails and fencing. Queensland Bridge and Civil awarded the steel fabrication contract to Gold Coast-based Neumann Contractors.

Use of C450L0

Designs for the Juliette Street bridge specified the use of steel Rectangular Hollow Structural (RHS) steel sections, manufactured to the strict guidance of AS/NZS 1163 at the highest-grade strength of C450L0. Neumann Contractors turned to InfraBuild Steel Centre Coopers Plains (formerly LIBERTY OneSteel Metalcentre) to source RHS that fully meets the C450L0 standard before fabricating the bridge structure in three 45m pieces at its Currumbin yard.

As the manufacturer, Austube Mills met the requirement for C450L0-grade steel with its trademarked C450PLUS® range of dual-grade sections, which comes in the form of RHS, Square Hollow Sections (SHS) and Silo Tube.

Among the many benefits offered by the C450PLUS range are its high strength relative to its weight, as well as its excellent elongation, formability, weldability and processing capabilities. When required, C450PLUS hollow sections can provide additional points under the Green Star ratings tool for sustainability.

Preserving asset longevity

Arun Syam, InfraBuild Business Development Manager, says Austube Mills has a strong relationship with Queensland Transport and Main Roads and, along with InfraBuild Steel Centre, worked closely with Neumann Contractors to deliver a quality steel product conducive to asset longevity.

“Austube Mills and InfraBuild Steel Centre have longstanding experience working with Queensland Transport and Main Roads and they know they have a quality product in the form of the C450PLUS range,” Arun said. “Austube Mill’s offering is unique not only because it can produce C450L0-grade steel consistently across a wide range of hollow sections, but it also offers test certification as a guarantee of its compliance and quality backed by factory production control processes required by the Standard, all of which are third party certified by the Australasian Certification Authority for Reinforcing and Structural Steels (ACRS).” 

The fifth and final section of the V1 cycleway, Stage E (from Birdwood Road in Holland Park to Gaza Road in Tarragindi) is due to start construction in 2018 and is expected to be completed in late 2019.