Gulf Construction Online - Kuwait airport T2 work ‘on track’

Contractors

Work in progress on the roof structure at the new airport terminal.

Kuwait airport T2 work ‘on track’

01 May 2020

Turkey’s Limak Construction has announced that it has achieved a significant milestone in the construction of Kuwait International Airport’s new Terminal 2 (T2) project.

The company’s on-site factory last month celebrated the production of 30,000 shell cassettes required for the inner roof of the T2 project.

The company confirmed that work on the T2 project is ongoing and continuing in full compliance with regulations set by the Ministry of Health and other official government bodies in Kuwait in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Under the full support of the government of Kuwait, including the client on the project, the Ministry of Public Works (MPW), Limak is taking the preventive actions necessary while keeping work at the site, offices, facilities, and support centres under strict control and in accordance to the directions of the Limak Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) team, it states.

Limak Project Director Richard Meredith says: “Working at a steady production rate, we are taking all the proactive and precautionary measures necessary to keep our construction site and employees safe while continuing work on T2.

“The shell cassette fabrication is now over 80 per cent complete with 39 per cent installed since the start of casting in December 2018. The terminal’s roof structure is made up of 36,964 shell cassettes in different shapes and sizes that are repeated only three times. We plan to produce and install the remaining shell cassettes by August 22,” he adds.

Weighing an average of 7 tonnes with a maximum of 12 tonnes each, shell cassettes are the building blocks of the airport’s roof structure. These modular blocks, when connected together, form the massive domes that cover and span the terminal’s entire interior space. These innovative and unique segmented dome structures will span up to 137 m.

Constructed and assembled by Limak in Kuwait, the unique moulds were designed by Adapa, a Danish company specialised in mechanical innovation and computer aided mould manufacturing.

The design of the complex structure was undertaken by German-based firm Werner Sobek, while the roof’s construction methodology was handled by the Robert Bird Group, a member of one of the largest Asia-based urban, industrial and infrastructure consulting firms, says Meredith.

Limak has been working on the KIA-T2 project since August 2016. The new terminal building covering 750,000 sq m is planned to have a capacity of 25 million passengers per year. The terminal building package also includes the construction of a central power supply building, water tank building, security building, infrastructure tunnel and electricity substations.

The airport aims to be the first LEED (Leadership in Enery and Environmental Design) Gold building of the world.