Salzgitter steel on an Antarctic mission

Steel for the Antarctic

And steel from Salzgitter will also be on board. The protective outer shell for the 134 containers consists of so-called sandwich elements for roofs and walls. Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH has provided steel featuring Stroncoat^®-coating, a new zinc magnesium coating that is extremely corrosion proof.
The sandwich elements were manufactured by Romakowski GmbH & Co. KG, a company specialized in applications in extremely high and low temperatures. “We are pleased that steel made by Salzgitter can demonstrate its quality also in the Antarctic “, says marketing manager Frank Heidelberger of SZFG.
 
The station was commissioned, by the National Centre of Antarctic and Ocean Research, which belongs to the Indian Ministry of Geosciences. The polar station consists of 134 containers weighing in at some 1,000 tons, with a total footprint of around 2,000 square meters. It will stand on the Larsemann Hills in the East Antarctic. Together with its strategic partners, KAEFER Construction will be responsible for statics, execution planning, the facades, the habitable containers and their extensions, technical building equipment and systems, as well as logistics, transport and the final assembly at the South Pole.
The construction of the research station makes high demands on logistics. From Duisburg, where parts of the station had already been assembled in a trial run, the material is shipped via Rotterdam to Cape Town. From there, the shipments will make their way to their final destination on the Larsemann Hills, where the station will be set up in the Arctic summer from November to March 2012. Some 200 containers alone will be packed with tools, construction material and equipment.

"With this assignment we have been able profit tremendously from our experience gained in the construction of the Neumayer III polar station for the Alfred-Wegener-Institut in 2008/2009," explained Jörn M. Fetköter, deputy chairman of the management of the KAEFER Group. “With two such exceptional projects on construction sites with extreme conditions within the period of only five years we are becoming experts for engineering and construction in the world's polar regions. At the same time we are learning a great deal about the exciting work of the scientists engaged in the environmental and climatic research.”