Bauer finishes Kingdom Tower shoring
Project to build world’s tallest passes vital stage
The Kingdom Tower is planned to be completed in 2018.
Saudi Bauer Foundation Contractors has completed the foundation works for what is intended to become the world’s tallest building, the Kingdom Tower.
The tower, expected to be at least 1,001 metres tall, is being built in Jeddah, and is being developed by Kingdom Holding Company, the investment company of Prince Al Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud.
Saudi Bauer is a subsidiary of specialist foundation engineering company Bauer Spezialtiefbau GmbH based in Schrobenhausen, Bavaria. The company installed extremely long piles to place the foundations of the mammoth building.
The works involved installing 72 piles of 110 metres in length and 1.5 metres in diameter; a further 154 piles of 1.5 metres in diameter and between 49 and 89 metres in length; and 44 piles with a diameter of 1.8 metres, all down to a depth of 50 metres.
Drilling was carried out using BG series rigs. The long piles were installed using two modified Bauer BG 40 rotary drilling rigs specially configured for long kellys.
The next phase for the building is the construction of the structure, to be carried out by mega-contractors Saudi Binladin Group (SBG).
According to a report in UAE’s The National, SBG has appointed Advanced Construction Technology Services (ACTS) to carry out quality control checks on the construction materials, especially the concrete and steel that will be used at high altitude.
ACTS has said it will deploy about 100 expert staff members to the Jeddah project and would install a fully-equipped site laboratory, which would carry the day-to-day quality control operations and would also provide specialised testing services from its laboratory facility in the Briman area in Jeddah, which it said was one of the largest testing facilities in the Middle East.
The tower is planned to be completed in 2018.
