Buenavista del Cobre maintenance workshops, Cananea: 181,000 sq ft (16,817 m²) and 1,200 metric tons of steel

Challenge

A mining maintenance workshop takes in very large equipment, which drives into the building and maneuvers inside it. The building needs clear height (more than 12 m, or 39 ft, in this case) and frames that span that height with wide bays.

For the erector, that height defines the work: columns and lattice trusses are lifted and connected more than 12 m above the floor, from aerial work platforms like the one in the erection photo, inside a mining complex.

Solution

The structure is tall frames with lattice columns and trusses, perimeter bracing and purlins for the cladding. SQ Tech erected the complete structure and then closed the building with metal cladding on walls and roof.

The workshop uses 71.4 kg of steel per m² (14.6 lb/sq ft), almost four times the copper concentrate warehouse in the same complex (18.7 kg/m²). The difference comes from the type of building: tall frames with lattice columns versus arches that cover a much larger area with less steel.

The finished building has four access doors on its main facade, exterior steel stairs, and walls and roof closed with the metal cladding SQ Tech installed.

This page documents the erection. In the same Buenavista del Cobre complex, SQ Tech also designed, fabricated and erected the copper concentrate warehouse (2019–2020); when a mining project needs engineering and fabrication, SQ Tech does them with its own engineering team and in its Hermosillo plant.

Structural system

• Frames with more than 12 m (39 ft) clear height
• Long-span lattice columns and trusses
• Perimeter bracing
• Purlins and metal cladding on walls and roof