Project Summary
Scouten Engineering was engaged alongside Radloff Engineering to design a wood chip powered bioenergy facility for Kwadacha First Nation. We were responsible for the structural design of the facility, which included an engineered cast-in-place concrete slab, a structural steel canopy, and a wooden pole shed for chip storage.
Project Description
Scouten Engineering is no stranger to working in remote locations. We worked with another Prince George consulting firm, Radloff Engineering, to design a wood chip powered bioenergy facility for the Kwadacha First Nation. Scouten was responsible for the structural design of the facility, which included an engineered, cast-in-place concrete slab, a structural steel canopy, and a wooden pole shed for chip storage.
Extreme care had to taken to work with the northern climate and the existing frost susceptible soil structure. The existing site soils consisted of frost susceptible fine-grained oils overlaying a sandy gravel base further down. To reduce shifting of the proposed facility, the site was over-excavated to the sandy gravel layer and built back up with free draining material. This method of excavation allowed us to avoid using conventional deep foundations and cast a thinner concrete slab with thickened points for the overhead structure.
By doing this we were able to reduce trucking costs to the remote site. The canopy over the power plants and gasifiers was built of robust structural steel to provide extra protection to the power generating units. The chip storage shed was designed as a large wooden pole style structure, using locally sourced timbers. Like the concrete slab, to reduce heaving, the area under the poles was over excavated and refilled with granular material.