Hello again, in our last article, we discussed exactly what a structural integrity audit is, and now that you know that you might be wondering why exactly you might get one done. Based on our last article you might have already guessed that the answer is to identify any damage to a structure, in which case you’d be right, but there is more to it than that.
Why Structural Integrity Audits Go Beyond Buildings
A lot of people don’t think of structures as things that can fail, which is understandable, how often do you see a building collapse? There is two problems with this line of thought.
Firstly, structural audits apply to more than just buildings and include things such as tanks, walkways, platforms, retaining walls, storage bins, and other structures.
Secondly, structures do fail and when they do it can be catastrophic. Mines Safety Bulletin No. 124 which you can find HERE: https://www.worksafe.wa.gov.au/system/files/documents/2025-03/MSH_SB_124.pdf lists a number of failures that have occurred on Western Australian mine sites, and details how although nobody died, multiple fatalities was a possible outcome.
The Financial and Safety Risks of Ignoring Structural Damage
Essentially, the main reason to get regular structural audits is to minimize risk. In situations where structural damage is very bad, it’s likely a mine department inspector could issue an improvement notice that forces a mine site owner to get a structural audit completed.
This, however, is not the only reason to get a structural integrity audit completed. When properly planned structural audits can save money. To give a real-life example:
At Rapallo when we perform structural integrity inspections, we often find corrosion on steel structures. Where corrosion is minimal our structural integrity audits will offer recommendations to clean up this corrosion and repaint the surface, in these situations sometimes sandblasting isn’t required and the corrosion can be cleaned up sufficiently with a wire brush and then painted over, the cost here is almost nothing.
We have also experienced multiple structures over multiple mine sites that require extensive repair, sometimes repairs get so bad that structures are required to be partially or completely replaced.
Repairing structures is expensive and difficult at the best of times, however, to complete these repairs with minimal impacts to production can be very difficult, and the planning and engineering costs for the repair increase exponentially with its complexity.
This is a best-case scenario because an audit is eventually carried out. Consider the situation where a defect notice forces a mine site to shut down and causes days of lost production, or the absolute worst-case scenario where a failure occurs, not only will the cost from lost production be astronomical, but there is also a chance for multiple fatalities.
A structural audit only requires at most a few days on-site, and so I think the case presented here highlights that as a risk management tool it’s very affordable and useful compared to the alternatives.
If you have any questions about the content of this article please give us a call, we’re happy to provide advice on any structural issues you’re facing. Our next article will discuss who should be conducting structural integrity audits and why you should hold off before trying to complete one yourself.
