emirates financial towers
Image Credit: Colliers International
DIFC, Dubai
27 Storeys
General Contractor: TAV Tepe Akfen Investment Construction
Pro-Bel services provided: Design, Engineer, Manufacture, Supply and Install
Below is a rendering that provides a general depiction of a Pro-Bel BMU (this is not the Emirates BMU). It depicts a smaller design on a track around the perimeter of the roof.
This USD $545 million project involves the construction of two commercial towers which both towers will comprise 3 basement floors, a ground floor, a podium level, and 27 additional floors. A round glass sky bridge will run through the towers connecting the 16th floor of each tower and housing an exclusive business club as well as a retail area. The ground floor, podium level, and first floor will be dedicated for retail purposes, and the 3 basement floors for car parking. A unique feature of the project is the 1600 robotic car parking spaces, the largest in the world. Amenities in the project also include a gym, sauna, jacuzzi, health club, and swimming pool, all located on the 15th floor.
Pro-Bel Technical Approach
A distinctive building unquestionably requires a distinctive approach to window cleaning/exterior building maintenance and Pro-Bel provides it, in spades. For this suspended maintenance project, Pro-Bel brought out two of its biggest "guns" - a roof car system for the towers and monorail systems for the sky bridge and podium levels. A Pro-Bel "Hands-Free" horizontal cable lifeline system was also employed at the podium roof level.
For each of the towers, a roof car system is concealed in deep roof recesses above the 27th floor. Dedicated to a specific building and owner-purchased, Pro-Bel roof car systems and similar equipment e.g. rubber tire and long span boom machines represent a generation of suspended maintenance equipment above that of other primary rigging equipment. A roof car, normally mounted at the highest elevation of the building, travels along I-Beam tracks, pipe rails, or concrete corridors/runways. In this instance, steel tracks are mounted on concrete pedestals. The roof cars on the Emirates towers have been engineered to accommodate long span booms that make it possible to clean a large portion of the tower windows including much of the glass sky bridge. The telescoping, swiveling boom or jib feature on this job can reduce or eliminate the need for additional roof cars, davits, or other primary equipment at lower levels due to a
17'-0" (4.6 m) reach that can access all sides of each tower. To eliminate the need for a control cable between the platform and the roof car, Pro-Bel employs a remote controlled hoisting system or control cable interwoven with any one of the four platform suspension cables to raise and lower the platform.
To clean the windows below the sky bridge not accessible by roof car, and at the podium level, several monorail systems were employed. Typically, a Pro-Bel monorail system consists of an aluminum rail section that houses a manual or electrically powered traversing trolley. For a two person platform, four trolleys are required: two for the primary suspension (platform) and two for the workers' lifelines. For a bosun's chair, two trolleys are used. Typically, workers access monorails via a localized window, hatch, rigging sleeve, or ladder.
Other Pro-Bel suspended maintenance products used on this building include stabilization buttons to protect against platforms impacting on building faces in high winds, conventional anchors, and bosun's chair.
Below is a rendering that provides a general depiction of a Pro-Bel BMU (this is not the Emirates Towers' BMU). It depicts a smaller design on a track around the perimeter of the roof.
