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These intrepid rafters look like they're shooting the rapids of some vast swollen mountain river, but in fact they're just a few kilometres out of Sydney.
The Penrith White Water Stadium, built for the Sydney Olympics, pumps in water from a nearby lake. The water runs along a base made from a remarkable new type of concrete that is not only durable it's helping to solve a serious waste disposal problem.
When coal is burned to create electric power, the stations end up with a by-product called fly ash.
"It used to be and remains a problem for the power station because of the amount being created on a daily basis."
In the early 1950's a way was found to use the fly ash in making extremely thick concrete for example in dam walls but its usage was limited. Then, in the 1970's, concrete containing 15 to 20 per cent fly ash made it easier to pump so was successfully used in high-rise building constructions.
So Dr. Vute Sirivivatnanon from Australia's science agency CSIRO has since developed a way of making more versatile concrete, not only with fly ash, but with other waste products, slag from steel mills and silica from silicon production.
"With this type of concrete we are looking up to 70 per cent replacement of Portland cement."
So far it's been used to make the Sydney Harbour tunnel, in airport construction as well as watercourses for shooting the rapids. Using fly ash to make concrete not only improves the quality of the concrete, it gets rid of a previously useless industrial waste.
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For more information on Concrete from Waste please contact: |
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Dr. Vute Sirivivatnanon CSIRO Manufacturing and Infrastructure Technology PO Box 310 North Ryde NSW 2113 Vute.Sirivivatnanon@csiro.au |
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This site is optimised for browsers that support tables. Updated 20 September 2005 |