Corus tubes develops 45 year lighting columns

Citation

(2002), "Corus tubes develops 45 year lighting columns", Anti-Corrosion Methods and Materials, Vol. 49 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/acmm.2002.12849fab.004

Corus tubes develops 45 year lighting columns

Corus tubes develops 45 year lighting columns

Keywords: Tubing, Coatings, Paints

Corus Tubes has supplied 280 high specification, long life lighting columns to Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council. These are some of the first columns in Great Britain coated with a tough new polysiloxane paint finish.

Doncaster’s Street Lighting Engineer Barry Hale explains: “the life, expectancy of a standard galvanised lighting column in our region is around 25 years. However, we have developed a specification that could nearly double that life to 45 years.”

“The Corus long life column has a base made with thicker steel tube and the root coated in glass flake paint. In addition, the exposed portion of the galvanised column is treated with the new factory-applied high performance coating.”

The orders for Doncaster are for 280 columns in total, in 6, 8 and 10 m heights all protected with PSX 700 from coating specialist Ameron International. This coating is reported to give a high quality finish and significantly extends the life expectancy of galvanised columns. It is already widely used for steel bridges, wind turbines and in offshore environments.

The columns are galvanised to BS EN ISO 1461:1999 prior to coating with the PSX 700. There is a small premium for the extra gauge of steel and high quality corrosion protection but with the greatly extended lifetime this is thought to be easily covered by savings in replacement and connection.

“With the PSX 700 coating we add another extended lifetime product to our portfolio and get a pleasing appearance. We can now coat in any BS 4800 or RAL colour,” remarks Jeff Handley, manager at Corus Tubes Lighting Columns.

“It is difficult to put a precise lifetime on lighting columns because so much depends on the local conditions. However, with the PSX 700 coating and the enhanced root specification we expect the 45 year minimum life with the appropriate maintenance and repainting.”

Corus Tubes, one of the UK’s largest lighting column suppliers, continues to produce the rest of its range of high specification anti-corrosion coated columns such as Securigalv and Securiseal along with columns to Highways Agency galvanised specifications.

Corus Tubes’ Lighting Columns come in a range of sizes offering from 3 m to 12 m mounting heights with a range of shaft and base diameters, in thicknesses up to 6.3 mm to meet all common applications. All columns have a hot shrunk base/column joint to give the utmost structural integrity. A range of bracket arms can be supplied, with a watertight bracket to shaft connection.

Details available from: Corus Tubes, Special Products, Tel: +44 (0)1536 404772; Fax: +44 (0) 1 536 404770; Web site: www.corustubes.com