Mataf is the surrounding around the Kaba, center of the holiest mosque in Islam, located at the Grand Mosque of Mecca. It is at the place where the tawaf, the anti-clockwise circumambulation around the Kaba, takes place.

The Mataf expansion, is a large project planning to add 1,300,000 sqm to the existing 400,000 sqm of existing space. The renovation will feature a new basement and 3 additional floors, adding capacity for hundreds of thousands of additional worshippers.

For this very special project,Dextra Middle-East, has been involved in the supply of rebar couplers and anchor solutions.

Megacolumn

For the megacolummns, Dextra offered to contractors an opportunity to connect cages vertically, while coping for possible misalignment.This was done using Bartec Caging assemblies, which can perform a misalignment adjustment equivalent to one bar diameter.

While allowing reconnection, the Bartec Caging Assemblies were also used to temporarily lock the large column template (visible in red in photos) and guarantee the correct set up of column reinforcement.

Megacolumn footing

Dextra Bartec Headed Bars, which use the same type of threads as the couplers, were also installed at the footing of megacolumn as a way to cope with reinforcement congestion.

The anchors, compact and easy to set up, can be set on bars at the final stage of reinforcement installation. In that case, the anchors were installed from the top of the raft on the vertical bars.More than 100,000 Headed Bars were used on this type of applications during the project, those are visible as the X shape at the column footing.

Column-to-beam connections

For more standard applications, Bartec couplers were also used to perform the horizontal connections between columns and the beams.

The Broadway London project consists of six buildings, ranging between 13 and 19 stories tall. The mixed-use development is located between Westminster and Victoria, directly adjacent St James Park Station on a 1.7-acre triangular site.

The development contains 268 luxury apartments. Its ground floor will house 25,000 sq. ft. of high-end retail units, while 1st to 3rd will provide 116,000 sq. ft. of prime commercial space. It also has a colonnade between the east and west buildings, with feature landscaped residents’ gardens on the roof terraces.

The buildings have been named after three of the world’s most revered diamonds – The Sancy, The Paragon and The Cullinan – six new jewels in Westminster’s crown.

Dextra supplied over 20,000 units of Groutec S coupler, installed in 1,200 square and circular precast columns.

Groutec is a mechanical splicing system designed for the connection of precast elements in compliance with Eurocode 2, BS 8110, ACI 318, IBC, AASHTO. It is available in 3 models: slim “S”, large tolerance “L” and fully grouted “F”.

The project is due for completion in December 2021.

The Wasl Tower is a 302m super-high-rise structure in downtown Dubai, surrounded by the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the World, and the new City Walk Development.

The tower will have the world’s tallest ceramic façade which will help regulate the internal temperature of the building as well as reducing the surrounding noise.

Moreover, vertical gardens and several shading and cooling design innovations are going to further minimize the overall carbon footprint of the building.

The project will comprise offices, residential areas, service apartments, a 5-star Mandarin Oriental hotel, along with bars, restaurants, a spa and a swimming pool.

With its structural concept of three 300m-high core shear walls connecting to four large outriggers, high-performance rebar couplers are required to reinforce and connect concrete beams and columns.

More than 280,000 Bartec standard couplers, weldable couplers, headed bars and RepairGrip swaged couplers were delivered for that purpose.

The project is anticipated to be completed in 2021.

Source of images: https://www.unstudio.com/en/page/11705/wasl-tower, https://www.facebook.com/UNStudioArchitecture/

The development of the dry port in Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Energy Park (SPARK) is set to revolutionize the logistics landscape in the Eastern Province. This ambitious project, which serves as a vital link between Dammam and al-Hasa, is poised to significantly improve customs services while supporting economic growth objectives and Aramco’s initiatives within the SPARK industrial complex.

A noteworthy aspect of this groundbreaking venture is the extensive use of Dextra’s 2.4 million linear meters of Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) rebar for slab-on-grade applications in areas subject to heavy loads.

GFRP rebar is a composite material made by reinforcing a polymer matrix with high-strength glass fibers. Unlike conventional steel rebar, which is susceptible to corrosion when exposed to moisture and aggressive chemicals, GFRP rebar is inherently corrosion resistant. This key attribute makes it an ideal choice for a wide range of construction applications, especially in harsh environments where traditional steel rebar would quickly deteriorate.