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RELATED ARTICLES: Top 5 airport projects in the GCC | Baghdad airport to build three more terminals | Al Jaber clinches contract for DIA Concourse 3
Four hundred thousand square metres of sealing material is keeping the seawater out at Dubai International Airport’s new extension, Concourse 3.
A busy hub between East and West, Dubai International is the world’s fastest-growing airport in terms of customer throughput, with a growth rate of close to 20% and more than 37 million passengers in 2008.
The airport’s long-awaited USD 4.5 billion expansion opened on October 14, 2008, and Concourse 3, a huge vault-like structure on top of a deep 750-metre-long and 250-metre-wide basement, is expected to be completed by 2011.
The building will be kept watertight thanks to some 400,000 square metres of Elastoseal EPDM tanking membrane.
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“The water table in the United Arab Emirates is very high, since the loose sand particles of the desert make it easy for seawater to penetrate the ground, so saltwater is found just one or two meters down,” explains Munzer Akbik, Managing Director of AMC Protection, providers of concrete treatment and protection solutions. “This means that every basement structure must have good protection against water to prevent penetration and to ensure a longer life for the building.”
AMC Protection was contracted by Dubai’s Department of Civil Aviation to supply an envelope tanking system for Concourse 3, which will accommodate the increased number of passengers expected to be arriving with the new Airbus A380 superjumbo aircraft. It will also incorporate climate-controlled lounges, have 27 contact gates and include an underground baggage transfer area.
Trelleborg supplies the membrane in rolls that are 1.7 metres wide and 25 metres long. These are shipped from Sweden and then brought to AMC’s prefabrication centre in Dubai. There they are welded into panels that are five to six meters wide and 25 metres long, folded, and then transported to the site for installation.
“In addition to the logistical challenges, we work very close to aircraft in certain areas, so we have to be very careful with safety procedures,” says Akbik. “We have worked with Trelleborg for several years now, but never on a single project of this scale.”
“It’s the largest single project we have ever had,” agrees Fredrik Åhman, Export Manager at Trelleborg in Värnamo, Sweden.
It was in partnership with AMC that Trelleborg developed its unique waterstop. The waterstop is used in tanking applications when compartmentalising Elastoseal EPDM tanking membrane.
“We were the only EPDM manufacturer that could supply such a system component and other accessories that can be welded to the membrane,” says Åhman. “That’s what it took to seal the deal.”
The deepest part of the basement of Concourse 3 is 20 metres below the water table, and the area is punctuated by 4,500 piles to support the structure.
“We have to monitor quality very carefully and ensure the tanking is perfect, and the client has requested a permanent on-site technician from Trelleborg,” says Akbik.
“We normally send someone for a week or two,” says Åhman. “But here, the standards were extremely high. I’ve never seen anything like it in terms of quality control.”
To date, AMC has covered some 280,000 square metres of a total area of around 400,000 square metres.
“This is such an important contract for us that we are doing everything we can to guarantee its success,” says Akbik. “With a lot of effort, we have risen to the challenge, and we are even ahead of schedule.”
AMC always knew it would be under pressure from the client to complete the job at speed, so Akbik had a first batch of Trelleborg material shipped before he even won the contract.
“I wanted to get to work straight-away, and I knew that if we didn’t win the contract, I would be using Elastoseal somewhere else in future.”
Dubai International Airport
Dubai International Airport is connected to more than 200 destinations across six continents via 120 airlines. It accounts for more than a quarter of all passenger and aircraft movement in the Middle East and Africa regions and has an average daily passenger throughput exceeding 100,000, and about 800 aircraft. The new terminal building opened in October 2008, and the A380-specific facility, Concourse 3, is expected to be completed by 2011.
Elastoseal EPDM
With a service life exceeding 50 years, Elastoseal rubber (EPDM) can endure almost unlimited loads and water pressure as well as withstand movements from earth settlement or temperature changes. The panels are welded together using hot air and pressure.
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