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Continued...
The biggest of the three buildings, named 'Laws' after a former
director of the BAS, is 900m2 in size and contains a living area, sleeping
quarters and a technical support section, while the other two, measuring 140m2
and 185m2, house specialist laboratories.
In detail, the Laws building has 20 two-person bedrooms, dining
room, lounge, recreation room, library, kitchen, dark-room, communications and
computer rooms, a base commander's office, wash-rooms, a hospital and a surgery.
It is supported on 20 legs.
All three structures are built of prefabricated panels and have
flat roofs and triple-glazed non-opening windows. Generators running on aviation
fuel provide electric power, with heat recovered from their cooling systems used
to create comfortable working conditions for the staff and also heat the
15,000-litre-capacity snow melt tank that provides all the station's water.
Generally, the above-surface design concept has improved accessibility and
provided a more positive working and living environment for staff.
In order to keep the platforms at four metres above the snow,
which can drift several metres annually around the structures, they are lifted
each year by electric screw jacks and re-attached to the steel support legs, to
which extensions are bolted. At the same time the support legs are re-aligned to
correct for distortion caused by differential movement of the ice shelf beneath. |
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