FORMWORK expert Doka, a silver sponsor and exhibitor at the Middle East Concrete Exhibition (MEC), will be giving visitors a first-hand experience of their innovative systems that are said to set the formwork-technology agenda for years ahead.

The inaugural MEC event is co-located with The Big 5 show.

Lighter and stronger system components, a revolutionary new load-bearing tower and path-breaking innovations for forming walls and floor slabs will be in the spotlight at the company’s stand at the show, where Doka will also be conducting outdoor live demos on its products on the first two days of the event.

“With these innovations, Doka is bringing labour and equipment costs down even further, and laying down an entirely new standard for ergonomic design and safety on thousands of jobsites,” says Sonali Maheshwary, marketing manager, Doka Gulf.

Staxo 40

One of this year’s exhibits is Staxo 40, which is described as a revolutionary load-bearing tower that is designed to meet the requirements of the building construction segment, and sets new standards of speed, safety and efficiency, she says.  The system’s significantly weight-reduced and ergonomically optimised H frames make for very easy handling, meaning fast erection and dismantling times combined with high stability and workplace safety.

Doka’s ready-to-use service ... aims to address the needs of the market.

By using the finite-element method in the constructional design process, Doka’s engineers have been able to greatly reduce the weight of the Staxo 40 frame while permanently improving its strength. “The results speak for themselves. A standard-version Staxo 40 frame only weighs between 15 and 24 kg and so can easily be shifted by just one person. The innovative H-shaped frame geometry and well-balanced centre of gravity are further factors that facilitate workflow. Add the system’s logical assembly sequence and small number of separate parts, and it is clear why it achieves substantially faster erection and dismantling times,” says Maheshwary.

Thanks to its optimised frame construction, Staxo 40 can be set up much more quickly than single-leg shoring towers, as these often have up to 32 per cent more weight and up to 78 per cent more separate parts slowing down assembly, she points out. For Staxo 40, this is a crucial advantage when it comes to shoring large areas efficiently.

As well as being extremely light and efficient, the load-bearing tower system also offers a very high standard of safety. Features such as the tested anchorage points for personal fall arrest systems, integrated safety catches for fixing the diagonal crosses, gapless assembly decks in and between the towers, and a sturdy built-in ladder system, all ensure a safe working environment at any height. The facility for assembling the towers in the horizontal, with tension-proof connections between the frames so that the towers can be lifted into position by crane, gives a further boost to safety and to the speed of work.

Frami Xlife ... lightweight.

Elaborating on the advantages of the frame, she says: “The H-shaped frame geometry of Staxo 40 makes it possible to have gapless, full-area assembly decks not only inside the towers, but also – for the first time ever – between them as well. This ingenious concept ‘puts all the pieces in place’ for high-speed work combined with high safety. Beneath the tower frame superstructure, the 1.7 m of headroom provides the space needed for erecting and dismantling the formwork, both quickly and ergonomically.

“What is more, the work-deck levels can be extended beyond the scaffold itself, so as to extend beneath cantilevering superstructures. Safe, systematic working is ensured here by easy-to-attach brackets. To adapt to different heights, Staxo 40 gets by with just three different sizes of frame, and with screw-jack U-heads and feet that can be adjusted with millimetre precision, each having a maximum of 75 cm extension length. Their novel thread geometry and three-wing spindle nut permit effortless height adjustment, even under full load. The large inter-frame spacings – of up to 3 m – combined with diagonal crosses of different lengths provide maximum flexibility and ensure cost-optimised equipment utilisation. When it comes to repositioning, too, Staxo 40 is designed to be highly cost-efficient and fast. Furthermore, these towers can be travelled on shifting-wheels, or crane-lifted, in their entirety – without having to be dismantled.”

Staxo 100

Doka’s leading load-bearing tower Staxo 100 is being deployed for the most challenging civil and structural engineering challenges on projects across the globe. Major advantages of the system are its ability to safely handle transfer slabs in the building sector, and provide ultimate stability for shoring on highway interchanges, bridges, and industrial and petrochemical applications. Staxo 100, which has won an innovation and research award in Europe, is renowned for its safety and extra-high load capacity, and above all its ability to be used for large shoring heights.

Maheshwary comments: “Customers have noted that the integrated access ladders, gapless assembly decks with planking units inside the towers and between the frames have greatly facilitated safety on their jobsites. As Doka is known for its faster and more efficient solutions, the workflows of workers onsite are greatly optimised due to logical colour-coded assembly sequences that have been compared to assembly with Legos – fewer components and integrated connectors which result in fewer parts overall in the system.”

Its flexibility on irregular layouts, stability, and rugged 97 kN load capacity per leg, combined with the safe and time-saving ability to horizontally pre-assemble the towers plus reposition entire towers around a construction site by use of shifting wheels, make Staxo 100 an industry benchmark, she adds.

Frami Xlife

Also in the spotlight at MEC will be the framed formwork Frami Xlife, a lightweight system for forming walls, columns and foundations.

“The advantages of the Xlife sheet, such as better nailability and quicker and easier cleaning, are now also available in the lightweight framed formwork Frami Xlife,” she says. “This upgrade to the timber-plastic composite Xlife sheet, which also has special tie-hole protectors, hugely extends the service intervals between changing sheets. Additionally, the special surface structure ensures the very best concrete results even after many, many repeat uses. On rented formwork, Xlife cuts the close-out costs for reconditioning damaged form-facing, and reduces the amount of finishing-work needed on the concrete.”

Staxo 40 ... revolutionary load-bearing tower.

Also, Frami Xlife can easily be combined with the Framax stripping corner I with the aid of a profile adapter – for fast, accurate forming of shafts.

TLS

Other Doka products that will be promoted at the event include its Table Lifting System (TLS), designed to transport floor-slab formwork up to the next storey.

“With its innovation, Doka has pulled off a new feat that even experts had reckoned was just about impossible: speeding up the repositioning of tableforms even further, with even greater safety, and completely independently of the site crane,” she says. “This lifting platform whisks a tableform up to the next floor in only 20 seconds.”

A new, self-climbing version of the TLS makes it possible to form floor-slabs 100 per cent cranelessly while enhancing safety during the lifting operation. This makes the self-climbing TLS particularly suitable for use on tall buildings. As the self-climbing TLS is structure-guided at all times, it can be safely raised even in poor weather conditions. Particularly when used in conjunction with the protection screen Xclimb60, this new solution is ideal, as both the protection screen and the TLS are “climbed” up to the next casting section using the same technical system, according to Maheswary.

Alternatively, where sufficient craneage is available, the TLS can also be raised by crane, guided on the structure in this case as well. Professional Doka site foremen are available to assist with advice and practical help when it comes to erecting the TLS on-site and training the site crew.

Maheshwary says Doka has packaged its decades of professional site support know-how into a broad spectrum of service offerings that is exactly tailored to each of the various phases in the construction process. “It is only when you combine high-performing formwork with professional service that you can be sure of achieving maximum success on the site. Support is provided from the tender phase all the way through to project completion and the customers return of the material and beyond,” she says.

In response to feedback from its customers, Doka in the UAE has introduced its new ready-to-use service to address the needs of the current construction market. This service from Doka, which recently expanded and moved to larger premises in Jafza south, has been available to customers since early this year.

“There’s never been anything like this and the service is exclusively available via Doka. Ready-to-use simply means that Doka plans, designs and expertly custom builds the formwork units for your jobsite requirements. Then, instead of delivering loose material that must be assembled by the contractor’s site-crew onsite, Doka sends trucks prescheduled or ‘just-in-time’ with the pre-assembled formwork units,” says Maheshwary.

Contractors can specify everything from the more simple shapes (such as floor slab tables) through to complex forms such as domes, curved and irregular shapes. The industrialised assembly – done in the UAE by Doka in accordance with its global quality standards – results in perfect-fit shapes and better concrete finishes. The ready-to-use pre-assembled custom formwork service enables contactors to start pouring as soon as the units arrive onsite.

“Doka’s ready-to-use operations capacity is already optimised,” she says. “One entire hangar with special service lines, machinery and staff is dedicated to customers pre-built orders for large-area Top 50 formwork, column formwork, curved wall formwork, floor slab tables, stairways, and climbing and working platforms. The service, already in high demand in all areas of the UAE, especially remote sites in Habshan and Ruwais, is also available to customers in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.”

Doka will be present at Saeed 3 Hall, Stand MEC C51.