Gulf Construction Online - Grove rises to Al Falah challenge

UAE Focus

Grove rises to Al Falah challenge

01 December 2011

A FLEET of 16 Grove cranes is helping keep construction of more than 2,000 villas on track at a major project in Abu Dhabi.

The rough-terrain cranes are working 24 hours a day at the $750-million Al Falah Community, a 12.5-million-sq-m masterplanned development located to the east of the Abu Dhabi International Airport.

The project is developed by Al Dar Properties and forms part of The Emirati Family Housing Programme, a wider government initiative launched by the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council to create more social housing for the local population.

One of the key challenges at the development is the tight schedule, and Gulf Precast Concrete Company, which owns the cranes, is manufacturing and constructing five villas each day to complete the 2,069 villas on time.

Gulf Precast COO Daniele Pfeffer says meeting the daily target and working in the harsh desert environment have increased the pressure of this project. 'The uneven ground and arid land makes things more difficult. But our Grove cranes have proved their abilities – working 12 to 24 hours a day for almost a year.'

The cranes, 14 Grove RT880Es and two RT760Es, arrived in December last year. There are 12 based at the 12,500-sq-km job site performing general lifting duties, including handling structural elements to build the villas and also installing a 220-km wall surrounding the entire community.

The other four cranes are working at Gulf Precast’s production facilities where they load precast elements onto trucks for transporting to the project site.

Milestone ... a Grove crane at work on the project.

The loads, both in the yards and on site, weigh up to 11 tonnes. All of the cranes were purchased new by Gulf Precast through the machinery division of the Kanoo Group, Manitowoc’s dealer for Grove cranes in UAE. One design feature on the RT880E and RT760E cranes that is proving particularly useful on this project is the inverted outrigger jacks, situated at the top of the outriggers as opposed to at the bottom.

The inverted outrigger jacks improve stability and also protect the cylinder rods from the ingress of dirt and sand. The Grove RT880E is one of the latest additions to Manitowoc’s rough-terrain crane range. The crane features a tilting operator’s cab (up to 20 degrees), 75-tonne lift capacity and a 39-m boom with Grove’s patented Megaform shaping for better strength and rigidity.

While precast works in Village 2 (1,059 villas) has been completed, the precast works in Village 3 (1,010 villas) is well in progress with a 60 per cent completion rate.

Gulf Precast has spent over eight million man hours since work started from June 2010 and over 280,000 cu m of concrete has been poured up to date, for one of the largest housing projects being developed in the region.

Gulf Precast is undertaking precast superstructure works for 2,069 villas in Villages 2 and 3 within the five-village, 4,857-villa development, as well as 280 km of boundary wall and several electrical substations.

The construction involves more than 50 mobile cranes to install the villas at a rate of five villas per day. The required precast concrete elements are manufactured and delivered from seven production plants.

The project features 18 different types of villas ranging from three to five bedrooms of different styles.

When the project is completed, Gulf Precast would have manufactured and installed 119,495 structural precast elements, 153,254 structural hollowcore slabs, 33,905 decorative precast elements, 66,660 decorative glass-fibre reinforced concrete (GRC) elements, 21,098 precast shaft covers, and 280 km of precast boundary walls.

Pfeffer says that completion of Village 2 is indeed an exciting accomplishment by Gulf Precast team and a major milestone for the project.