The International Islamic Relief Organization, هيئة الإغاثة الإسلامية العالمية, also known as the International Islamic Relief Organization of Saudi Arabia, IIRO and IIROSA), is a charity based in Saudi Arabia founded by the Muslim World League in 1978
The organization launched a tower construction for orphan housing in Mecca , esolution construction & Engineering re-reviewed the design and supported the Main contractor throughout the project construction , supplied and installed post tension , which the posttension concrete floors reduced thicknesses helped the client to increase two floor in the building , esolution construction & Engineering reviewed the design of the vertical supports and foundations to make sure the safety to receive the additional two floors in the buildings
The project is located in Mecca with three towers on one basement each tower consist of 3Basements + Ground + 16 Floors and Roof, it’s very traditional construction of towers with expansion joint divides three towers, the towers forms in plan U shape, the challenge that came up in the project is the connecting bridge between the right and left side.
The bridge is three spans bearing on concrete walls that is elevated from typical 7th floor to typical 9th floor with total height of 8.50 meters , the wall is laterally supported by the slabs in 7th , 8th and 9th floor( Typical floors ) , post tension ribbed slabs selected to cover the 12 meter spans between the walls , the ribbed slabs is rested on the right and left towers on beams , where the beams is formed with nibs that receives the slabs on bearing pad designed by BASF to retain the ribbed slabs reactions and allow the movement between the bridge and towers that is originally separated in the same locations with expansion joints as described previously.
the project located on the Mecca ring road in return the bridge as proposed in the tender design drawings to be made of precast concrete is impossible since the cranes cannot be positioned on the road, where its not allowed in any form to use the road or to be closed during construction.
Another challenge in the project came up with the formwork since the first bridged slab is 35 meters high from the ground floor slab and that makes the design of the formwork itself a challenge, the first slab is casted on Jan.06.2016 and project is progressing to cast remaining slabs.
Design Challenge
The walls is connecting two main columns of the tower , the external column is 35 meters high with 1600 mm diameter and the internal column tower is square column of 1600X1600 mm , the wall spanning vertically and horizontally to support the floor slabs and transfer those loads to columns , the design considered the construction stages and the formwork design that can only retain the load of the 7th and 8th slab weight only , during the design of the walls all this stages has been considered and agreed with the consultant ( zuhair Fayez ) , main contractor ( Al Arif )
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