Gulf Construction Online - Aluma table forms fast-track project

Limestone House

Aluma Frame Shoring system ... on Yas Island.

Aluma table forms fast-track project

01 April 2010

ALUMA Systems, a global leader in concrete formwork, says its innovative aluminium system has helped the construction team working on The Ritz-Carlton/Limestone House project achieve faster floor cycles on the fast-track development.

The company supplied its Aluma Table-Form shoring system for the construction of the project.
Elaborating on the product, Aluma Systems Middle East area manager (Abu Dhabi) Daniel Taylor says: “It is the fastest slab shoring system in the world, allowing contractors to build floors faster, using a much lower labour requirement than competing formwork systems. Being made of aluminium components as opposed to steel and timber, Aluma tables are much lighter than competing products, allowing the contractor to build larger individual tables, and thus reducing the number of units on the typical floor by a considerable margin. This means that in the time it takes to move 20 sq m of a competing formwork system, using Aluma Table-Form you can move 100 sq m. For the Ritz-Carlton construction team, this translated to faster floor cycle capabilities, reduced labour costs and crane time, and ultimately allowed the contractor build the vast typical floor slabs within a cycle of five to six days per floor.”
Taylor considers The Ritz-Carlton an important addition to Aluma’s portfolio of prominent projects.

Aluma Table-Form employed at The Ritz-Carlton.

“Despite the enormous range and volume of projects ongoing and upcoming in Dubai during 2007, The Ritz-Carlton was still a standout in terms of prestige and we very much wanted to be involved from the moment news of the project was released,” he comments. “Upon our first meeting with the main contractor, the Bouygues/Target joint venture, the importance of the project was stressed, along with the fact that the construction programme had to be implemented at a very fast pace. When we first saw the structural drawings of the typical floors, we immediately knew that we could offer a massive advantage to the project by using our Aluma Table-Forms for the typical floor slabs.
The major challenge of the project was constructing the vast basements and pre-typical floor structures, according to Taylor.
He explains: “Prior to working on the typical floor levels of The Ritz-Carlton – which everyone was confident would be very fast and simple with the use of the Aluma Table-Form – the main contractor first had to construct the basements and pre-typical floors. These included basement levels and mezzanine floors of a multitude of varying heights, slab thicknesses, and structural features. This was a crucial stage and our aim was to get to the typical floors as soon as possible.”
As the joint venture contractor had purchased the Table-Forms for the typical floors, Aluma aimed to gain as much technical advantage and commercial value as possible by using the Table-Forms throughout the pre-typical floors.
“Thankfully, the Aluma tables are extremely versatile, allowing us to re-configure the tables for the various heights occurring throughout the pre-typical structures. This brought an enormous advantage as it meant that the joint venture did not need to take vast amounts of time installing and moving traditional formwork systems, which usually comprise thousands of small steel pieces, through the basement levels.
“The Aluma tables were simply and quickly configured and re-configured for the various heights and slab thicknesses, saving not only the direct costs of not having to procure additional formwork for these areas, but also the knock-on benefits of the faster time and reduced labour required to carry out these works with the Aluma tables as opposed to competing systems,” Taylor points out.
The team did encounter some difficult aspects during the early construction phase, he says. “As we were progressing through the pre-typical levels, we encountered some very thick slabs (800 mm plus), but again the versatility of the Aluma system allowed us to solve this, and with some minor modification to the table, we were able to adapt the system even for these thicker slabs. This highlights a significant advantage that the Aluma tables have over competing panellised systems, which often have low pre-set limits on the loads that the panels can cope with, making them not only very labour-intensive, but also un-versatile.
“Due to the large areas of the basement slabs, and the additional requirements due to the greater shoring heights, we actually required more Aluma formwork than what was supplied for the typical floors. To achieve this increased requirement, we were able to supply the lightweight Aluma Frame shoring system to assist in the shoring of the pre-typical areas. These aluminium shoring frames weigh just 19 kg per piece, but have an astonishing load capacity of 100 kN per leg, meaning that they have an incomparable weight-to- load-capacity ratio. Due to the high load capacity, very few individual frames are required to support a given area of slab, and the lightweight aluminium materials are easily, quickly, and safely installed and moved from slab to slab,” says Taylor.
“With the versatile table form and the lightweight, high-capacity Aluma Frame systems, we quickly progressed through the vast and complex pre-typical structures, assisting the JV in reaching the typical floors as soon as possible. Then the typical floor Aluma tables fast-tracked the typical floor slabs,” he concludes.