Basements beside the sea
Al Sufouh and Dubai Internet City are coastal. The water table is shallow and carries chlorides and sulphates, which attack buried concrete and its reinforcement. Basement walls, rafts and pile caps are designed for that exposure.
Our substructure and piling mixes for these sites blend GGBS with OPC and keep the water/cement ratio low. Lower permeability slows chloride ingress; GGBS also improves sulphate resistance. The consultant fixes the exposure class and cover. Excavations near existing campuses often need a shoring wall first, cast in our shoring mix.
Waterproofing membranes and the concrete work together here. The membrane is the first line, the dense GGBS concrete the second, so neither one is treated as optional.
Frames with long spans
Lecture halls, auditoriums, hotel ballrooms and lobbies want large column-free spaces. Above them sit floors on a tighter grid, so the load has to be carried by a transfer slab or deep beams. These are thick, densely reinforced pours that must go in without a cold joint.
A 180 m³ transfer slab is 15 truckloads. We schedule it as one continuous sequence, adjust the retarder for the timing, and recommend a night pour in summer to stay within the placing-temperature limit and reduce heat build-up in the core of the slab.
Short distance, heavy traffic
At about 8 km from our Al Quoz plant, this is one of the closer districts. Sheikh Zayed Road and Al Sufouh Road carry heavy traffic at peak hours, so timing still matters. Campus and hotel management often set delivery windows; check with them before booking.
Universities and hotels stay occupied during extensions, so noise and dust matter as much as access. Short, planned pour windows with the pump already in position cut the time trucks spend on site.
Questions from Al Sufouh and Dubai Internet City sites
- Why GGBS for basements near the coast?
- GGBS lowers permeability and improves resistance to sulphates and chlorides, which are present in the shallow groundwater here. The consultant's exposure class sets the final requirements.
- Can a 57 m boom reach upper floors of a campus building?
- It covers most low and mid-rise floors from the ground. For higher floors a placing boom fed by a pump line is the usual setup.
- How do you keep a thick transfer slab from cracking as it cools?
- GGBS lowers the heat of hydration, and night pours start the concrete cooler. Your engineer may also specify temperature monitoring and insulated curing.