Contractor: R&S Fire and Security Ltd
Architect:
Distributor: VJ Technology Ltd
Location: Heathrow Airport Terminal 5

EJOT® Products used: Low profile head, EJOT SAPHIR® JT2-FR-3 5.5 x 32 and JT2-FR-3 5.5 x 50 Bespoke solutions

Construction of the new Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 (T5) started in September 2002; phase one of the project is scheduled to be completed and open by April 2008 with the second phase following in 2011. The project is requiring an estimated investment, mostly from the British Airports Authority (BAA), of over £4.2 billion. Terminal 5 is a large infrastructure project involving over 60 contractors, 16 major projects and 147 sub-projects on a 260ha site.

EJOT® were one of several companies approached by distributor VJ Technology Ltd, to offer a bespoke solution to fix the nominated fire protection system."Primarily, the customer needed a low profile carbon steel fastener for fixing single (9mm) and double skin (18mm) Promat Durasteel fire protection board to 3mm Metsec section" said EJOT® Technical Sales Exec., Ben Gallant, "the project was for the construction of passenger walkways, so their brief placed high emphasis on aesthetics to complement the engineered qualities".

VJ had already experimented with a wide range of fasteners readily available on the market, but couldn’t find an ‘off-the-shelf’ solution that satisfied all criteria. "We provide specially manufactured fasteners for particular details on a regular basis" explained Ben, "so once again I looked to tap into this resource"

"We started by trying several different types of low profile head. The fasteners were based on our stainless steel bi-met FR range and went from the drawing board of our design office in Sherburn, to prototype in Germany, finally to onsite testing at Heathrow. Final modifications were made and production/call off of some 650,000 fasteners is being undertaken over a 10 month period."