CONTRACTOR Abuljadayel Company, a specialist in water and wastewater projects, has utilised a number of formwork and shoring solutions provided by RMD Kwikform to support the construction of the world’s second deepest sewage pumping station taking shape at the North Jeddah Pumping Station project in Saudi Arabia.
Designed to serve Jeddah’s growing population, the new facility is part of a $1.1-billion investment programme funded by Saudi Arabia’s National Water Company. Construction on the project is expected to be completed in June 2013. Once operational, the pumping station is designed to pump a maximum flow of 1.125 million cu m per day.
The North Jeddah pumping station comprises a screen shaft and two pumping shafts, all of which drop over 72 m in total into the ground. There is also a three-stage collection chamber, various auxiliary buildings and permanent site offices.
Each shaft is 68 m deep. The screen shaft has a 4.5-m-thick concrete base slab and each pumping shaft has a 5.5-m-thick base slab. Before RMD Kwikform started supplying formwork, the contractor constructed the circular diaphragm walls using 2.4-m concrete panels. Once excavated to full depth, the 1.2-m-thick shaft wall was constructed, followed in succession by the bottom slab.
There were three main formwork elements of the project that RMD Kwikform was involved in, including supplying double-sided wall formwork to the U-shaped collection chamber building. Using a range of equipment, including steel Superslim Soldiers as primary beams and Alform beams as secondaries, the wall formwork reached a total height of 13 m. With 348 linear m of equipment being used for this section of the construction, the entire structure above ground level was poured in a single pour, using a total volume of 3,100 cu m of concrete.
Rapidshor shoring with U-heads and Alform beams were also used to support 500-mm-thick concrete slabs on top of the three 46-m-diameter shafts. The Rapidshor was built 68 m high and topped with U-heads, which held double Alform beams as primary bearers and single beams as secondaries.
