Photo Courtesy: Radius Track
Terminal Island Water Reclamation Plant – Digester Cladding Replacement
McClure received Second Place – Municipal in the 2025 CFSEI Design Excellence Awards for its work on the digester cladding replacement at the Terminal Island Water Reclamation Plant in San Pedro, California. To extend the life of the facility’s iconic egg-shaped digesters, McClure served as the specialty cold-formed steel (CFS) engineer for a full cladding replacement in a high-corrosion coastal environment. The solution: an all-stainless steel CFS system designed to resist constant moisture and coastal exposure.
The curved geometry of the digesters and unknown substrate conditions posed major challenges. McClure and the project team developed custom-fabricated radiused horizontal studs, shaped in short arc segments to fit the unique curvature while resisting multi-directional forces. All components—studs, clips, screws, and anchors—were stainless steel to ensure maximum durability.
To accommodate variations in concrete thickness and anchor location, custom clips with large stand-off tolerances were engineered from ¼-inch stainless steel. Anchors had to be shallow enough to avoid the post-tensioned structure, so field pull testing confirmed performance under load.
This project demonstrates how CFS systems can be adapted to solve highly specialized design problems—providing a resilient, long-term solution in aggressive environments.
About McClure
Founded in 1956, McClure has grown to a firm of over 280 professionals in fourteen offices. With a vision of making lives better, McClure brings engineering and development expertise with a collaborative approach to identify the best strategies and solutions to bring our client’s vision to life. We look at every project through the lens of economics by thinking, designing, and building for the future. McClure’s expertise is in guiding clients on making long-term capital investments in the areas of aviation, bridge, community development, construction observation, development, environmental and stormwater, landscape architecture, structural, survey, traffic and safety, transportation, wastewater, and water.