Rockspan Case Study

Eurobond supplied over 20,000sqm of cladding for two giant printing works for News International in Scotland and Liverpool.

Eurobond supplied over 20,000sqm of cladding for two giant printing works for News International in Scotland and Liverpool.

The original specification for cladding from another manufacturer was broken for reasons of performance and better delivery.

One unusual and important reason why the panels were specified relates to their superior performance in the abatement of noise abuse from the vertical printing presses.

Publishing giant News International are constructing three new printing plants in Scotland, Liverpool and London.

Designed by Oxford Architects, the Motherwell site comprises a 30m high structure to house the vertical printing presses connected to lower level offices, warehousing and distribution facilities.

The Liverpool building, designed by Burkes Green architects, is connected to an existing facility on a site with an established infrastructure.

Over 20,000sqm of Rockspan have been used to clad the buildings.

At Motherwell, the cladding originally specified came from an overseas manufacturer.

However, one concern was the matter of delivery; another was noise insulation.

Nick Heath at cladding sub-contractors Sharkey Group said 'We have always had a very good relationship with Eurobond and Euroclad.

We are also a preferred subcontractor to Carillion.

As there was no issue of price, and as we have always enjoyed exemplary service from Euroclad, it made good sense to have the cladding manufactured by and delivered from their sister company Eurobond in Wales.' One of the major concerns of the local authority in Liverpool was the potential for high levels of noise from giant presses printing virtually 24 hours a day.

As a result, an independent test was set-up to compare the performance of several similar cladding panels.

Eurobond's Rockspan panels, particularly helped by the density of the Rockwool mineral fibre core, proved its superiority over all the other panels and were an important factor which influenced specification of the cladding.

The 150mm thick panels are 8.2m long on the Motherwell site, fixed at 4m centres to an intermediate beam between stanchions, and 4m long at Liverpool.

Fixing was relatively straightforward in spite of the 30m height where panels had to be craned up individually.

This was carried out using the special patented Eurobond clamp.

An important feature of the design is that the clamps are suspended from the lifting beam by links and chains that allow it to rotate in the horizontal plane.

This means that it is very easy to pick-up panels directly from the flat stack which minimises manual handling and speeds up erection.

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