New concrete industry

You've heard the expression "hard as concrete". Well it doesn't apply to Superior Concrete Ltd, a firm which only recently commenced operations on the reclamation. Their concrete is harder than concrete. Why? Because it's stressed to give the maximum amount of stress. No elaborate building for the firm, but a simple, prefabricated steel shelter which can be dismantled easily and moved to the site of any major work they are undertaking. Principal of the firm, Mr Hugh Win, has some revolutionary ideas about concrete but his ideas are not theories and the proof of their value is in his product. At the moment the firm is making stressed concrete slabs for Kingsford Quay. Much of the secret of the concrete's strength lies in stressing it with half-inch steel wire. Each of the eight strands in each block is stressed to 25,000 lbs pressure a square inch. The stressed wire tends to counteract the deadload, giving an uplift. This gives greater strength and thereby permits heavier loading.

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The firm's premises

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The wire is run through the moulds and wire cages placed at each end (Allan Fitzgerald, Pat Langley and Gary Furness tighten nuts)

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Manager Bob Walker at the controls of a hydraulic pump which applies the stress to the wire (operated here by Frank Mutsaers).