Cockatoo Island is located approximately 200 km north of Derby in Western Australia. The site has been mined since 1950 and contains one of the world’s richest iron ore bodies. The facility originally comprised seven berthing dolphins (of which six remain); a mooring point; three intermediate walkway trestles between the dolphins; a luffing boom ship loader; and workshop facility.

The ship loader is elevated above the seabed to account for the 11m tidal range. Erected during the mine site’s inception during the 1950’s, it is still used today to load vessels during normal mine site operations.

The 46m x 24m workshop (which is no longer in use), was originally constructed in 1948. It has two lean-to structures on the eastern side, as well as a lean-to structure extending the full length of the building on the western side. The internal clear height of the building is at least 11.2m.

Design & Analysis was first engaged to perform visual site inspections and data collation for a quantitative risk assessment of the shiploader and mooring dolphins, to enable remedial design works. This was followed by a visual observation of the site’s workshop, including overhead observations by drone due to the sheer scale of the structure to provide a fully comprehensive Visual Observations Report.