BAM, a Swiss manufacturer of prefabricated reinforcement mat, is promoting its Bamtec system in the Gulf, which it claims offers significant savings in construction costs.

"Reinforcement is fundamental to structural concrete. It is available in numerous forms to suit many applications," says a company spokesman. "From straightforward reinforcement to ingenious prefabricated components, manufacturers and fabricators are continually extending the options available to designers and contractors to solve problems and cut costs."

He continues: "The Bamtec system of prefabricated 'carpet' reinforcement is in use in over 20 countries. Developed in Germany in the early 1990s, it enables quick and easy manufacture of reinforcement rolls, produced specifically for a project using CAD technology. Each roll consists of precisely spaced and sized reinforcement in one direction, welded to flexible metal banding and rolled around reinforcement hoops that are later discarded.

"CAD data from the design office are passed to the workshop designing the bespoke reinforcement mats, and then to an automated reinforcement welding machine. This results in compatibility between the design, manufacture and fixing. For each area of slab, two rolled reinforcement mats are delivered to site, positioned by crane and unrolled; the lower rests on conventional chairs or spacers, onto which the upper is unrolled at right angles. Site personnel need to be provided with a plan showing the exact position and rollout direction of each mat. Designers also need to take account of the loadings on the falsework. For most installations, only two men are required, wastage is reduced, and up to 40 per cent of direct material costs can be saved over existing methods."

BAM says the system reduces fixing costs by up to 80 per cent.

"Many sites worldwide have used the system," the spokesman says. "Liebherr in Germany used more than 2,000 tonnes on an area of 122,000 sq m and saved at the same time 103 working days by fixing it. On the Lakeshore office development in Essex in the UK, O'Rourke Civil Engineering installed 1,300 tonnes of Bamtec, the peak rate being 92 tonnes by four men in two days.

"The system has also achieved the world record for reinforcement fixing: at a site in Bayreuth, Germany, two steel fixers and one crane driver placed seven Bamtec mats, with a total weight of 6.36 tonnes in 42 minutes. In an eight-hour day, each fixer could theoretically place 36 tonnes."

The Bamtec system won praise from a reputed US magazine earlier this year. Engineering News-Record (ENR), the leading construction industry business weekly published by the McGraw-Hill Companies, honoured 25 top construction industry newsmakers of 2000, and amongst them were Wilhelm Haussler, who invented Bamtec technology along with Norbert Nieder.

"Structural engineer Wilhelm Haussler has invented a significantly faster and cheaper alternative," ENR reported. "The founder of Bamtec developed a CAD-driven prefabricated reinforcement mat system that is simply rolled into place and can save up to 40 per cent in material costs and 90 per cent in labour costs. Last year, four workers rolled 101 tonnes of mats in two days for a parking facility at London's Heathrow Airport. The method shaved four weeks off the schedule."

"Bamtec is the first technology from outside the US to have ever received this award," the spokesman says.