Industrial Plastics worked with the Queensland Government to manufacture six conical caps for a marine pontoon as part of the Yarrabah Jetty Project. The pontoon, which will be situated about 1km west of the Yarrabah township, is designed to facilitate future ferry operations and increase economic activity in the area. Our customer required six conical caps to sit atop the pontoon piles to prevent birds from roosting and to satisfy various regulatory requirements. 

Pontoon

The caps were quite large (approx. 1000mm diameter) and needed to be able to withstand the sort of weather conditions and erosion you would expect from a marine installation. As such, you would not find this kind of product on the shelf and each cap needed to be custom designed and fabricated from HDPE because of its highly durable and malleable properties. 

Pontoon

The fabrication process involved cutting out a cylindrical base with a circumference of 3191mm from a flat sheet. The sheets were only 3000m long however, so we needed to butt weld the extra 191mm before folding the sheet around into a cylinder and welding the ends together. Topping off the cylinder is a cone frustum, which is just a cone with the point cut off the top. The frustum was cut from the HDPE sheet, rolled and extrusion welded from side to side to form the conical shape. Then, the cone frustum and cylinder were stacked on top of each other and an initial hand weld is run along the circumference to hold them in place before an extrusion weld is performed. Finally, an end cap with a diameter of 200mm is welded onto the top of the cone. 

To find out more about our plastic solution capabilities or for any technical assistance please contact our sales team via email: [email protected] or telephone 1300 465 888.

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