South Uist - P2ML Telecommunications Tower
Condor Engineering has just completed a challenging job on the island of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides, undertaken for P2ML to stabilise a telecommunications tower whose original anchors had failed. Being vital to the island’s infrastructure condor designed a bespoke solution due to very poor access to the tower which is located upon one of the mountains as such large machinery was unable to access the site.
Condor Engineering designed and produced steel frames to be placed over the existing support blocks which had failed and installed anchors at a depth of 6 metres and 100mm bore diameter to hold the tower against the Atlantic storms. Due to the tight nature of the structure a drill rig mounted on an excavator was used on the outer anchors, but a hand rig had to be brought in to drill under the tower.
Two test anchors had been drilled and tested to over 47 tons of pull force with no failures, showing that the works were more than adequate and above spec for the design. Using AM1000 anchor mortar and stainless-steel grip bar ensuring the maximum life span of the works, all anchors were locked off at a working load of 6 tons.
This was a challenging undertaking with the elements and distance working against over operatives with 13 hours of travel to arrive and no local suppliers for our specialist equipment with our operatives working for 13 days straight on one trip. Drilling into the hardest granite condor has ever drilled with some anchors takes upwards of 5 hours to reach depth, this has its benefits though as seen in the test results by providing a very
strong bonding to our anchors.
For more information about rock anchoring or ground stabilisation for a variety of different applications and locations, contact Condor Engineering today.
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