The historic naval dockyard at Rosyth is being modified to accommodate the largest ships ever built for the Royal Navy for assembly and testing.
The project, which is part of the Royal Navy’s £4.6 billion future aircraft carrier programme (CVF), will see dock one widened and straddled by a goliath crane that will compete with the Forth railway bridge for position in Scotland’s skyline.
Project challenges and goals
- to upgrade the dockyard infrastructure for final assembly of 65000 tonnes aircraft carriers
- to raise the UK naval power’s global profile
- to fulfil obligations as part of the aircraft carrier alliance to deliver dockyard facilities to meet the overall programme and budget requirements
- Outcomes and achievements
- the tendered value equalled Halcrow’s estimate
- continued investment in Rosyth’s work force
- investment in apprentice and graduate training
- turning Rosyth into a centre of excellence as part of a national naval ship-building strategy
Halcrow’s role
Halcrow is providing detailed design and supervision of construction, including coordinating construction design and management (CDM) services. Halcrow is providing 95 per cent of the services, and managing naval architecture sub-consultants. Our services include:
- designing the widening of dock number one with a direct entrance, a new intermediate dock gate, extended ship caisson and sliding caisson gates
- designing foundations for a 1100t capacity goliath crane, upgraded dockside services, a lower skidding system for moving blocks of up to 20,000 tonnes, strengthened Synchrolift building, berthing dolphins, steel access bridges
- computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis for vessels alongside trials and numerical wing model to study wing regime created by the goliath crane
- design and supervision of site investigations, cost estimates, contract strategy advice, tender documents, tender support for the contract award, supervision of construction and acting as coordinator for CDM regulation
We are contributing to the success of the project by:
- bringing a partnering and team working ethos
- creating maritime structures and dry dock design
- doing dock gate design and finite element analysis
- providing CFD analysis, contract strategy, CDM and construction supervision experience