Dubai airport
Facts and figures
- The roofing slab has an area of over 450,000 m2
- Over a six-month period we delivered over 2,200 tonnes of Alshor Plus on time directly to site
- The tables alone weighed up to 7.5 tonnes each
- Concrete pouring peaked at 35,000 m3 per week, through 3,500 loads per week
- The total cost of damaged and scrap material came to less than one per cent of the equipment value
Interserve’s engineering design skills, as well as the power and flexibility of its market-leading Alshor Plus shoring, were graphically demonstrated when main contractor Laing O’Rourke decided to use the system in the construction of Dubai airport’s immense and technically challenging new terminal.
The structure of the terminal is substantially below ground and is divided into three main areas: terminal, concourse and car parking. At ground level is a thick suspended slab which acts as a roof over the basement complex to form the apron for aircraft around the departure/arrival gates. The complete terminal structure is approximately 1km long and 100m wide.
In order to construct the concrete slabs of the roof, at heights of 16m and more, Interserve’s formwork and falsework business, RMD Kwikform, brought together several of its specialised products. Key amongst these was Alshor Plus, one of the few systems in the world capable of meeting the demands of such a project. Furthermore, in time trials it proved to be at least three-to-four times faster than competing systems, delivering overall productivity of two-to-three man hours per tonne compared to the next best at five-to-six man hours per tonne.
This was the first project in the Middle East to use Alshor Plus and its success has established the product as a market leader both here and across the globe.
