ON SITE LOUVRE ABU DHABI
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MEGACRANE The Terex CC9800 has a 160m long boom and a lifting capacity of 1,600 tonnes.
Consisting of Arabtec, Constructora San Jose and Oger Abu Dhabi, the joint venture is expected to complete the museum’s concrete frame by the first quarter of 2014, while the gigantic steel dome will be finished by the end of the year. The final construction stage, which will include marine works and the removal of temporary land platforms, will be done by 2015. “It’s been a very significant challenge, but one that the contractors have been very successful in overcoming,” he points out. “Ideally we’d stagger or sequence the work so that we could complete the substructure and then after that we could do the dome. But that would mean that there would be many areas of the site that would be idle at any one time. It is a very tight construction programme with 974 days so we do have overlapping activities.” Ali Al Hammadi, deputy managing director at TDIC, adds: “We’re happy with where we are today. To date, more than 10 million man hours have been dedicated to Louvre Abu Dhabi, reflecting the amount of foundation work that the museum requires. Despite the challenging
and complicated design, construction on the ground has been progressing steadily and on schedule. Over the course of one year, we’ve moved from construction at 7m deep to above ground construction of the galleries.” What was also a significant challenge was maintaining the concrete pour rate on the massive project. Although 117,000 cubic metres of concrete have been poured so far, Armstrong says that the rate of concrete pouring has been slowed down as a consequence of progress. “We’re now into the much smaller areas, doing the columns and walls,” he explains.
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MIDDLE EAST
“RIGHT NOW THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE IS WITH THE DOME PROCEEDING IN A COUNTER CLOCKWISE DIRECTION. THE CONCRETE BUILDING MUST BE COMPLETED SO THAT WE CAN PUT THE TEMPORARY TOWERS ON TOP OF CONCRETE BUILDINGS”
APRIL 2014
“But we’re also limited on this project by how much concrete can be poured at any one time. It’s unlike typical projects where you might see one massive concrete pour. Here we’re actually limited to a maximum size of 500,000 cubic metres for any one pour. And then there’s the nine-day wait between the adjacent concrete pours,” he continues. The heat is a major concern, he adds. Given temperatures in summer can reach as high as 50° Celsius, care has to be taken over the pouring of concrete to ensure that no moisture is lost from it, which could have potentially catastrophic consequences. “Not only do we need to make sure that the air temperature doesn’t exceed the maximum limits, (but we also have to note) that the temperature of the reinforcing steel actually exceeds the air temperature. So we need to monitor the reinforcing steel to make sure that it’s cool enough to make sure we can put wet concrete against it, so that it doesn’t rapidly evaporate any moisture in it.” As things stand, the majority of work for the museum’s basement levels have been completed, including the underground buildings, such as the Energy Centre, which houses the pumps, generators, transformers and other MEP services. The Security Screening Facility, a highly secure 7m deep basement that will allow authorised vehicles to transport all the artwork that will be displayed and stored in the museum has also been completed.