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The Cal Poly pier is a steel and concrete pier that extends 1
km into San Luis Bay. This is the only pier in the US that is
made mostly from steel. The structure is 7 m wide with a one-lane
road for access to a large platform at the south end of the pier.
Picture of the road. The facility has two
components, the base of the pier and the pier itself.
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The base of the pier is a two-acre
open bluff with a parking area for vehicles. A 2000 sq ft
structure located on the platform provides office and workshop
space, a dive locker and a laboratory/classroom
area. This class room space is planed to be expanded to
10000 ft in the future with a flowing seawater
lab which we will use to provide life support for local
fauna and flora for both undergraduate education and collaborative
research efforts. More information on these and more improvements
that will be done in the future can be found on the Present
and Future Developments page. |
The pier has pipes that run the length of it along the road that
leads to the main platform. Picture of Pipes.
These pipes have been cleaned and could be used for many things.
Cal Poly has the idea that the pipes can be removed leaving space
for widening of the entry road and extra parking or extra class
room space. The pipes already have a base structure and would
just need to be removed. The new structure could then easily be
put on the base structure that was underneath the pipes.
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The square structure
is one of the many features that makes the Cal Poly pier
so strong. These square stuctures are placed throughout
the pier to add extra stability to the already exsisting
piles. As you can also see, the piles have black plastic
rap around the parts that are submerged in water to help
prevent the corrosion of the piles by the sea water. |
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The pier it self
was built to withstand a 200 year storm. It has many structural
improvements over the old pier, mainly that is made from
steal. There is steal grating along all of the roads to
allow the wave energy to flow through it. All of the piles
anchoring the pier are drilled down in to the bed rock and
then filled with concrete. The piles have a plastic wrap
around them to prevent electrolysis and rusting of the steal.
In adition, there is a sacrificial anode that helps prevent
corrosion. |
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