Heavy duty support frames and bracketry for plantrooms in three rooftop areas

MIDFIX were engaged by the main M&E subcontractor on this large and complex project to design, engineer, and supply heavy duty support frames and bracketry for the main corridors, the entire basement plantroom area, plus boiler rooms and plantrooms in three rooftop areas. We were also commissioned to design high level busbar supports, containment bracketry, and AHU frames.

The most involving part of this project was the basement chiller plantroom, and this particularly showcases the capabilities of the MIDFIX design team. With the building essentially bridging an underground station, and with up to six levels of pipework and a total services weight of well over 130 tons, this was extremely complex and required months of design work and clash checking to ensure it was fit for purpose.

Careful consideration had to be paid to the loads and pressures distributed from the feet, owing to the nature of the floor below. Every frame required checking and signing off structurally to ensure it would take the massive loads applied by the services. Due to the flexibility of the FRAMO 100 system used, it was easy to add in further support or bracing as required, even retrospectively.

Allowance also had to be made for the pipework expansion devices. Working closely with the client’s engineering team, we ensured all the pipe slides and guides could be picked up by the supports and the necessary space for the bellows and pipe movement accounted for.

Working with the client’s Navisworks and AutoCAD models was essential to ensure every frame was correctly positioned. We had to submit our models regularly for the federated BIM model and the need to work to world coordinates in Inventor proved challenging but was overcome.

Pipework bracketry

Pipework supports

Site visits were carried out to check the installation and ensure the finished project matched the original engineered design.

In retrospect, while from a design and project management perspective, this two year project has been one of the most complex and involving we have worked on, it provided a great opportunity for MIDFIX to develop and demonstrate our engineering capabilities and deliver a successful outcome for the client.