The tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, will be the world’s tallest building after its scheduled completion in 2020. Adrian Smith + Gordon Grill Architecture designed the building for the client, Jeddah Economic Company. A hotel, offices, apartments and a shopping centre will be housed on more than 530,000m² spread over 240 floors.
Contractor Saudi Binladin Group is using products from Schwing Stetter for the concrete operations. Two on-site Stetter HN 3.0 batching plants are producing the concrete necessary for the mega-project in order to avoid long drives and potential delays in concrete supply. Four Schwing SP 8800 D stationary pumps with an engine power of around 450kW each and a maximum feed pressure of up to 243 bar are available for high-rise pumping of the fresh concrete. A high-performance, self-compacting concrete (SCC) C85 will be used for the construction phase up to a height of approximately 400m.
A comprehensive pumping trial on site prior to the beginning of the project was needed to optimise the concrete mixture because the theoretical calculation models did not provide reliable results for a project of this scale. The next construction phase extends up to a height of some 675m and will also be carried out with a high-performance concrete, but with a somewhat lower compressive strength. At the top of the second construction phase, a concrete pump will be installed to take on the further transport of concrete to the higher floors.
For placing concrete, the Saudi Binladin Group is using a total of five separate Schwing concrete placing booms (SPB). Three SPB 35 and two SPB 30 booms are raised along with the building to be used by the contractor‘s team for placing concrete up to a height of over 950m.
Part of the Schwing Stetter order also include over 1,000m of pumping line for the first construction phase up to 200m in height, including the fixing accessories. The high discharge pressures and outputs at these heights require secure fastening of the delivery pipes to ensure safety.
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