Gulf Construction Online - UFDS to run site tests at Villamar towers

Britain & the Middle East

Water penetration tests ... follow the ASTM 1105-00 standard.

UFDS to run site tests at Villamar towers

01 June 2016

United Facade Design and Services (UFDS), a first-of-its-kind independent testing facility in Bahrain for building materials and façade systems, has been awarded a series of onsite weather and integrity testing assignments by Gulf Holding Company (GHC) at the Villamar at the Harbour project, work on which resumed recently in Bahrain.

Villamar was conceptualised to include three twisting towers with retail and lifestyle facilities complementing the Bahrain Financial Harbour development in central Manama. The main contractor for this project is Al Hamad Construction with Cowi of Denmark having been appointed as the projects consulting engineer.

Set up last year, UFDS has been offering mobile and onsite testing services in the country. It has appointed British-owned Facade Design and Services to run the facility and is dedicated to making Bahrain’s buildings environmentally, economically and structurally better.

UFDS has developed and has now commissioned the first weather testing chamber capable of facilitating mock-up samples 6 m high and 4.8 m wide, says Peter Bustin, the company’s managing director. The static/mobile testing chamber can also be dismantled and transported to site to allow onsite system testing for installed mock-up areas.

Furthermore, UFDS has constructed an acoustic chamber which, once completed and calibrated, will facilitate samples 4 m high and 4 m wide.

“We anticipate this particular facility to be online around the end of July. Onsite acoustic testing is anticipated to be available from around the end of June to complement the many forms of onsite weather and structural tests currently undertaken,” says Bustin.

Further test chambers are also available to test individual door and window sets for a range of weather, structural and condensation forming tests, he adds. In addition, hard and soft body impact testing chambers are in the final stages of being constructed and will soon be available.

The mobile weather testing chamber.

The UFDS facility covers more than 1,000 sq m, with options for future expansion as and when required. It already has designs for a further external fixed test wall with a height of 16 m and a width of 8 m.

Bustin comments: “UFDS provides a wealth of experience and façade systems knowledge with modern technology for testing building materials.

“We want to be able to assist Bahrain and protect the environment with building performance products in order to help keep bills down.”

He points out that with government subsidies being lifted on electricity, independently tested façade products will assist in keeping energy costs down.

Bustin says UFDS will provide support to ministry departments, developers, architects, engineering consultants and system providers in the development of building materials that go into making the all-important high-performance building envelope.

“A full service is available for system failure checks (forensics) providing potential solutions to extend and prolong the serviceability of the structures envelope building,” he explains.

UFDS has recently been accredited with ISO/IEC 17025:2005 after meeting general requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories.

Bustin says: “The accreditation was a lengthy process, starting with producing a manual containing all the procedures and documents that must be strictly adhered to. Periodic checks are undertaken by the governing body to make sure all testing is in accordance with the standards, and that procedures are adhered to. We use AAMA (American Architectural Manufacturers Association), ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) and CWCT (Centre for Window and Cladding Technology) standards for our testing procedures.”

The facility can accommodate many forms of testing: small sample bench testing of glass, aluminium, stone, steel, timber, plastics, etc for performance specification clarity, verification and conformance; samples provided as a system or part of a system for security testing, covering burglary break-in to blast mitigation, endurance, and weather testing; samples on a small single door/window or large scale for acoustic, impact, seismic and weather performance testing, both static and dynamic (aero engine or large portable fan used to simulate wind).

To complement the high-tech laboratory testing, UFDS test equipment can be transported to sites for weather, structural and overall performance testing of installed samples and systems, be it full floor-to-floor installations of curtain-walling or single window and door units.

“This opens up a range of testing procedures to provide clients a level of confidence in regard to the performance abilities of the installed products,” says Bustin.

UFDS’s testing services cover walk-on glazing, façade performance testing, building thermal analysis, on-site water testing, forensic testing, blast and ballistic mitigation testing, impact compressive and flexural strength testing, bedding compounds and sealant testing, security glazing testing, acoustic testing, weld testing, and glass roller wave testing.