Penny’s Bay and Kai Tak Community Isolation Facility (CIF) are quarantine units managed by the Hong Kong government’s Security Bureau (SB)’s anti-epidemic task force in response to an increase in COVID-19 patients in 2022.

The quarantine units are a four-story building made of containers with Fortec+ couplers for each module connection. They will be dismantled when the COVID-19 situation improves.

Fortec+ is a parallel threaded mechanical splicing system that comes with a set of four rebar preparation machines: cutting, cold forging, threading, and thread quality testing.

The International Commerce Centre is a landmark skyscraper in Hong Kong, located in West Kownloon. Thecommercial building is 484 meters high and features 108 floors. It is still to date the tallest building in Hong Kong and among the 10 tallest buildings in the world.

Vertical reinforcement is by definition a key feature for buildings of that height. Consultant ARUP and contractor Sanfield picked Dextra for the splicing of reinforcement across the building. It is to be noted that both stakeholders had already work with Dextra on the similar Two IFC project, another famous 400m+ skyscraper, which was completed a few years earlier.

For this project, Dextra supplied more than 800,000 rebar couplers. Those were used to perform most vertical connections on the structure, in particular all columns.

Rebar couplers also provided connection points for second phase rebar reconnection. Typically between columns and slabs, and between columns and beams. To do so the rebar coupler are aligned horizontally and cast in concrete. Reconnection is only performed at a later stage by screwing in second stage rebar.

Bartec is the preferred reinforcement splicing solution of contractors in Hong Kong as the solutionis recommended in the Hong Kong Building Material List.Dextra also operates its own rebar threading workshop in Hong Kong, providing the rebar preparation service for its customers.

With a total height of 829.8 m and a roof height of 828 m, the Burj Khalifa is currently the tallest building in the World, and it has held this record since its topping out in 2009.

The building was originally named Burj Dubai but was renamed in honor of the ruler of Abu Dhabi and president of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

This iconic skyscraper immediately became the symbol of the government of Dubai’s plan to transform the city into a touristic hub and to gain international recognition.

The tower’s structural system consists of reinforced concrete construction from foundation to Level 156; above Level 156 is predominantly a spire, consisting of a structural steel braced frame system. It used 330,000 m3 of concrete and 55,000 tons of steel rebar.

The foundation system is a piled raft: a 3.7 m thick raft supported by 1.5 m diameter bored piles with a diameter of 1.5 m each, extending 50 m below the raft base.

Numerous pile load tests were carried out on the piles of the tower. Crosshole Sonic logging (CSL) testing was also carried out for integrity testing of concrete foundation on a number of works piles, using 20km of Dextra Sonitec tubes.

Sonitec is a simple, fast, and reliable tube solution used for the CSL testing. The system is compliant with ASTM D6760, the standard method for integrity testing by ultrasonic cross-hole testing.

Moreover, more than 100,000 Bartec couplers were supplied for piled-raft extension and reinforcement.

Dream Acres is a large residential complex (81 acres area) located east of Bangalore in India. The ambitious real estate program features 13 towers of 14 floors built in a record time thanks to the use of precast construction methods supported by a purpose-built factory powered by Vollert equipment.

For this project, Dextra offered owner and contractorSobha with a two distinct coupler solutions, supported by threading services.

On Dream Acres, Groutec precast solution was used for the swift connection of precast elements either to a footing or directly to another precast element, ensuring a high performance connection and speeding up installation compared to more traditional wet in-situ joint methods.

After casting on the production line, the panel is brought to its final location for straightening and bracing installation. Locally sourced non-shrink grout is inserted into the cavity by injection. After injection, the bracing around the precast panel may then be removed after only 3 days.

Dextra does not supply the grout as Groutec is by design compatible with several non-shrink grout brands that can be sourced locally, generating savings and easing logistics.

To complement our precast solution, Dextra also supplied its Bartec solution. Bartec is used across Dream Acres to splice the reinforcement for cast-in-place applications as well as for precast applications to achieve longer length in precast elements.

To support both solutions, Dextra India took in charge the rebar preparation operations. Rebar with Bartec-threaded ends were delivered directly to Sobha according to their production schedule. Same bars can be used indifferently with Bartec couplers or Groutec couplers as the two solutions take advantage of the same thread system.

Next to the “Geomatikum” building, which houses numerous departments and research centres of the university of Hamburg, the new “House of the Earth” is taking shape. Across more than 21,000 square meters of space, this multipurpose structure will accommodate activities related to geoscience and especially climate research: As of 2018, all units related to the CliSAP (“Integrated Climate System Analysis and Prediction”) excellency cluster will research and teach from here, in close proximity to the Max-Planck-institute for Meteorology.

During 2016 and 2017, Dextra supplied its Griptec system for the splicing of cast in place reinforcement in various parts of the building. Griptec couplers are available all over Germany through our network of distributors. Of course, Griptec has been approved for the German construction market by the DIBt (Deutsches Institut für Bautechnik).

For more information about Griptec’s availability in Germany, please contact Dextra Europe office.

SOCAR Tower is corporate office tower located on the way to the city center of Baku, capital city of Azerbaijan. This is the tallest building in Azerbaijan, and in the entire Caucasus region.

The building acts as the headquarters of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR)

The tower features 42 floors and reaches a height of 202 meters. It has been completed in 2016. It is now one of the most recognizable landmark of Baku.

For this project, Dextra has been involved on the project for concrete works between 2011 and 2014, supplying the Bartec rebar coupler solution for all rebar connections on the project. The project was supported by Bartec equipment sets, installed directly at site, and supported by Dextra European aftersales team for site support.

Dextra rebar couplers were supplied to contractor Tekfen for:

• vertical bar-to-bar connections in columns.
• horizontal rebar connections in slabs.
• wall to beam connections. In that case the coupler is cast flush with formwork in first phase concreting. After formwork removal, connecting rebar is simply screwed into the
  Bartec coupler.

To allow for the splicing of bars at places where the rebar haven’t been prepared with a thread, RepairGrip sleeves and hydraulic equipment were also supplied for precise applications. RepairGrip allow to conveniently splice rebar where the protruding length wouldn’t be sufficient to perform a safe overlap.
For more information about the availability of precast solutions in Middle East, please contact our Dubai office for more information.

The i-Towers are a 3-building mix-used estate project located at the heart of the new Central Business District of Gaborone, capital city of Botswana.

The project is designed and built by Murray and Roberts Botswana and features a 21-storeys residential tower, as well as a smaller 14-storeys office building tower, a commercial building and parking spaces.

For this new Gaborone landmark, Dextra supplied its Bartec® rebar coupler solutions, which the main rebar splicing solution used in Botswana and South Africa.

Bartec is often a prefered solution for highrise projects as it is chosen for the reliability of its rebar preparation process, its performance level and the gains of productivity it offers during the reinforcement installation.

In total, those are more than 20,000 Bartec rebar couplers which have been used for columns and slabs on the two i-Towers.

For more information about couplers product and equipment availability in Botswana and South Africa, please contact our Paris office.