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“The gypsum precast panels are also significantly lighter (only 60kg per m²) than block-work which can lead to a 60%-70% load off the foundations for tall buildings.”
Emirates Industrial Panel
An alternative to precast concrete panels is metal faced paneling, and one company says they are leading the way in terms of product quality and technological knowhow. Emirates Industrial Panel offers metal faced panels, which can be clad in stainless steel, aluminum or galvanized steel and either have a polyurethane or polyisocyrunate core.
The company’s $27 million factory in Dubai Investment Park began operation midway through last year and has the capacity to produce four million m² of panels per year.
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Managing director Walid Taha says the advantages of using such panels are well known; it enables quick construction, there is minimal wastage, they are lightweight, they have good thermal properties and they use less concrete which results in a smaller carbon footprint.
Taha adds that their state of the art production facility, which was brought over from Germany, is the only fully-automated production line in the Middle East region.
“It’s a continuous production facility and only five people operate the line to produce 8000m² per eight hour shift,” he says.
“In a typical discontinuous line it would require somewhere in the region of 250 people to run the line. So it’s very high technology which produces a high quality product and there’s limited room for human error.”
Taha also says that the other upshot of having such a facility is that EIP can import the highest quality materials from Europe which gives their products durability, fire resistance and thermal qualities like no other on the Middle East market.
“We are able to offer metal facings such as hot-dipped galvanised steel with a guarantee of 40 years on the panel,” he says.
“That’s incredible durability brought about by the special material we import from UK and Germany. The panels also have a good thermal rating; for a 50mm wall the U-value is around 0.46 W/m²°K and for a 200mm panel is 0.12W/m²°K.
“On top of this we are the only company to offer polyisocyrunate, which is a highly fire retardant foam. Basically we
have brought the high quality European panel to the Middle East.”
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FEATURED COMMENT
I like the idea of green precast. What would be the cost of building one villa? And is it feasible to build only one vil