Structural Design: Rotary Milking Parlor & Subway, Riverview LLP

Structural Engineer of Record for Milking Parlors throughout the U.S.—Reinforced Concrete Design • Foundation Design

At the heart of every Riverview dairy is the parlor building. This building consists of Octaform walls that bear on typical frost walls and strip footings. Octaform is a wall-forming system that provides a durable, cleanable interior surface as well as an insulated exterior surface for exposed wall conditions. MP-Squared (MP2) designs and specifies the concrete and rebar required for these forms.

The parlor building is capped with wood trusses provided by a wood building supplier. MP2 works closely with the supplier to ensure adequate load transfer from the wood structure to our foundations.

Depending on the dairy size, the parlor building can house one to three carousels that enable continuous milking of the herd. Riverview maps out ramp and subway systems to achieve their desired workflow. Some dairies have hundreds of feet of tunnels below the building. MP2 designs these tunnels to handle live loads from cows and forklifts above. They are a combination of cast-in-place and Octaform concrete walls with a structural slab or precast ceiling.

The parlor building is also home to a locker room, lunchroom, restroom, utility room, electrical room, water room and boiler/pump room. Additionally, MP2 designs a pedestal and mat slab for the silos that store the milk product.