Pool Lining – Belguim

Belgium Aquarium

The aquarium in Belgium needed a new approach to constructing display tanks. The aquarium is a public display meandering around tanks and water features across two floor levels. What makes this display different in architectural design is that it is located over a basement car park and under a Hotel. The most critical part of the design was weight loading.

Creating tanks in the traditional way from poured-in-place concrete or pre-fabricated concrete panels were out of the question. The structure of the Hotel and the car park could not take that amount of additional weight and the stresses that such a structure would impose. A way of lightweight construction had to be found and this resulted in the tanks being constructed from a composite of plywood and steel.

Whilst concrete tanks can suffer from cracks, water penetration and leaks it is inevitable that the joints in the plywood and the plywood itself wood not be watertight. Simply sealing the surface with traditional coatings would not be the solution, it would need something that would be flexible, would be elastomeric and would be tough. Whatever the material the most important thing is that it would have to be safe and not pollute the water. The answer came in 5060.

5060 is available from Robex SA (pty) Ltd.

The steel framework was fabricated at site and the plywood was installed in a triple sheet configuration to provide staggered overlaps. The tanks were then coated with spray applied 5060 at a nominal thickness of 2.5mm. With an elongation of 380% 5060 would bridge the joints as they moved when the tanks flexed during filling and emptying and it would remain flexible and tough throughout its operational life. The Shark Tank was the largest and this posed further design considerations. The massive amount of water would impose a huge load that would have to be accounted for in some kind of movement joint. The design engineers calculated where the movement joints would best be placed and our unique design, adaptable to any size and almost any configuration, was installed along the top of the wall joint to certain vertical joints. The tank was marked with movement indicators to measure the deflection. The movement at the joints was only 4mm but had we not installed our flexible movement joint seal then the stress would have been too great and inevitably something would have failed.

Robex 5060 is available in a range of colours, beige and blue being particularly used on display tanks. The Shark Tank has a beige base representing a sandy bottom and blue walls to enhance the water.