ECS continues support
for British Antarctic
Survey station
T
he British Antarctic
Survey (BAS) has been
undertaking scientific
research on and around the
Antarctic continent for over 60 years.
The extremes of weather mean that
the various structures used to house
equipment, laboratories, workshops
and accommodation are continuously
being improved and replaced. ECS
Engineering Services has been
supporting this work by supplying
high specification, bespoke steel
fabrications each year for the last 20
years.
Structures destined for the Antarctic
must be designed to withstand
prevailing winds of up to 90 miles
per hour and an average external
temperature of –30ºC with an extreme
minimum of -56ºC. The most recent
addition to the landscape is the iconic
Halley VI Research Station that is the
first fully re-locatable research station
in the world.
There is a constant battle to overcome
approximately 1.2 m of snow that
accumulates each year on the
Brunt Ice Shelf, covering and
eventually crushing buildings on the
surface. To make matters worse, this
part of the ice shelf is also moving
westward by approximately 700m per
year.
The first four research stations have
been buried and crushed but Halley
V was the first station to use a
combination of jacks and stilts to raise
the station each year to overcome the
accumulation of snow. However, as the
station’s legs were fixed in the ice it
could not be moved and its occupation
became precarious, having flowed too
far from the mainland to a position at
risk of breaking away like an iceberg.
Over the years, ECS has provided
a considerable amount of steelwork
for the Halley V station and that has
led to further work related to the
establishment of Halley VI.
VI has included a number of research
cabooses, which look like large yellow
shipping containers on stilts, and the
Turbulence Tower.
BAS provide initial design drawings
to ECS where they are turned into
fabrication drawings and, following
approval, fabrication gets under way in
order to meet the shipping date. While
the majority of the work is classed as
EXC3 under CE certification guidelines,
ECS also provides some structures to
EXC2 which requires a lower level of
quality control and traceability.
Rob Butts, Production Manager at ECS,
comments: “We have a long-standing
relationship with BAS and we have
delivered an increasing amount of
work year on year. We use S355K2
grade materials that are impact
tested in order to achieve the client’s
requirements and create the various
designs which are then galvanised to
140 microns and in some cases painted
as well.”
ECS has a long history of working
with BAS going back 20 years which
has seen them deliver fabricated
steelwork, designed and constructed
to withstand the very harsh conditions.
The more recent construction of Halley
This year’s work has included 25
lengths of triangular trusses that will
make up part of the Halley Tower and
a number of leg extensions for the
cabooses as well as hinged staircases
that can move with the changing
snow levels. In addition, ECS will
manufacture a number of tower raising
frames each year for
BAS over the next 4 years.
In total ECS was contracted to
deliver nearly 25 tonnes of fabricated
steelwork this year, all of which had to
be delivered to the UK port in time for
the appointed sailing of the vessel to
The Falkland Islands, a date that could
not be missed.
www.ecsengineeringservices.com