Plateaus in a process plant site 1

[Fachoalto]

Hi, gentlemen,

My company is going to set up a big process plant in Brazil. The selected site has a total area of 20 km². The plant layout covers roughly 70% of this area. Natural topography has elevations between 15 meters and 50 meters. The company has recently contracted basic and detailed earthwork projects, including drainage. As an input to these projects, my colleagues have defined plateaus, at different levels, with areas ranging from 0.5 km² to 4 km².
My questions are:
Is there any advantage in having horizontal plateaus of so big dimensions?
Wouldn’t it be better if we allowed some declivity (ok, below a specified maximum) for the final grading (i.e., instead of horizontal plateaus, they would have a slight declivity)?
Wouldn’t it be better if the final grading followed natural topography (i.e. we would just specify the maximum declivity allowed in the graded surface)?

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

 

[ishvaaag]

Hmm ... if words say something your company is going to make an imPLANtation. I mean, there must be something in the nature of being a human in using the "ARTificial" (and remember, the original meaning in greek of art is technics) concept of a plan to suit some human behaviour, seeing the scale, adaptation of nature to suit human interest. So, in general those establishing the concept are but following a very much sanctioned tradition. Further knowledge of the uses, PLANning in general, would help to ascertain more if this decision of making the parts as big is correct. What is clear is that the operators of PLANts are expecting quite horizontal surfaces to set their equipment and buildings.

Now, going green, one can make some revisionist critics of the design. A small slope can have better general accessibility, will be amenable to lesser and more concentrated drainage works. Erosion can be of less concern since a plant and then one way or another is going to be accepted or restrained to the limits of the operation. A sloped surface will be also a bit less amenable to good surface compaction, whilst if intelligently designed provide a better surface runoff. It may or may not also be judged more beautiful to sight, on the lesser exposed lateral ramps, but others will disagree, on the gestaltic principle of "good form", arguing that horizontal lines, that have good form, are of more general appreciation than inclined ones. I for myself have come to take some disgust on having to walk in sidewalks transversally always 1.5 or 2% slope that make crippled people of everyone, first in use, and upon wear, really. There were not as much problems of drainage before, water is as smart. So the views will be as variegated as individuals.

 

[oldestguy]

I'd want to know more about those lateritic soils before making any such decisions. I hear that these are very troublesome soils to work with.