A Monument to Sustainability
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THE MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO NICKEL AND ITS APPLICATIONS |
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STAINLESS STEEL was chosen for this water tank in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee for aesthetic reasons
and for its ability to resist corrosion. |
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Stainless steel tank is built to conserve rain water By Virginia Heffernan
Nickel Magazine, November 2005 --When the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, U.S.A., decided to capture and reuse its stormwater to irrigate municipal gardens, urban planners envisioned a water tower that would serve as a monument to sustainability.
Aesthetics were a key factor in the design, as the tower was to be built in a recently revitalized downtown. Under these circumstances, S30400 stainless steel, containing 8% nickel, won out over more conventional materials, such as lined carbon steel or reinforced concrete, as the building material of choice.
"The tank is in a growing section of town and it had the potential to be an eyesore," says Thomas Schull, marketing manager for Chattanooga Boiler & Tank Co., which built the structure. "The designers were able to overcome that -- it doesn’t look like a water tank; it looks like a work of art!"
But visual appeal was not the only reason Consolidated Technologies Inc., the engineering contractor, proposed stainless steel: carbon steel tanks are much more susceptible to the corrosion caused by fluctuating water levels and therefore cost more to maintain.
Chattanooga Boiler, with its bid of US$160,000, won the contract to build the tank. The choice of stainless steel enabled the builders to assemble the tank at their nearby factory and avoid the expense and hassle of painting a carbon steel tower in the middle of a busy downtown core.
It is little wonder the Steel Plate Fabricators Association awarded the Chattanooga public works department its Steel Tank of the Year Award for devising a practical alternative to stormwater retention.
The 22-metre-tall, 5-metre-diameter tank is part of a larger water storage system that can retain up to 3.3 million litres of water in concrete pipes and box culverts, and in the tank itself, which has a capacity of 400,000 litres.
Two submersible pumps force water from an underground storage area through sand filters to remove solids before it enters the tank above ground. The filtered grey water is then used to irrigate the streetscape, flush and drain stormwater catch basins, and water trees and shrubs.
The water tower sits in the middle of a 30-hectare plaza bound on all sides by city streets. The tower flares out at the top to a diameter of eight metres.
"We’re not architects, but we’re pretty proud of the tank," says Allen Stephens, senior vice-president of Consolidated Technologies Inc., who managed the project on behalf of the city of Chattanooga. "We were able to take something utilitarian and turn it into something aesthetic."
Virginia Heffernan is a Toronto-based science writer.
PHOTOS: Consolidated Technologies
Allen D. Stephens |
