Johnson Arabia, the UAE-based provider of engineered heavy-lift services and rental equipment, recently executed a vital infrastructure project project in Abu Dhabi when it lifted and placed heavy girders in a bridge construction project.
As the UAE makes enormous strides in the real estate market, there is a very high demand for luxury residential developments across the country and Ramhan Islands is one of them. This development, off the coast of Abu Dhabi, features multiple sea front luxury villas, hotels and retail spaces, and also involves the construction of a bridge connecting the island to Abu Dhabi city.
It was in the construction of this bridge that the services of Johnson Arabia were sought, seeing as the engineered heavy lift specialist and equipment rental heavyweight has been a trusted lifting partner for the various developers on this project.
The lifting project in the construction of the bridge that Johnson Arabia carried out involved lifting and placing 43 tonne girder beams that were part of the bridge. As per its usual practice and following its meticulous processes, Johnson Arabia started with a comprehensive site survey. The results of the survey indicated the need to have the site backfilled with 100% compaction. By doing this the team was able to optimise the size of the cranes involved in the lift to reduce overall costs, enabling the use of first a 600-tonne lifter and then a 350-tonne one.
Explaining the particulars of the project, Sreethu Thulaseedharan, Engineering Manager, Johnson Arabia, said that as the UAE sees continuing growth in its luxury real estate and tourism, there are a lot of developments like Ramhan island that the team at Johnson Arabia are a part of because the company “has the expertise in soil compacting and heavy lifting on such challenging terrains”.
Johnson Arabia committed to excellence
“Johnson Arabia offers diligent and professional services committed to excellence.
We understand the criticality and importance of the tasks assigned to us and are committed to delivering exceptional service to ensure the success of our projects,” Thulaseedharan emphasised.
Describing the challenges of the project and how Johnson Arabia solved them, he added: “To ensure the safety of all personnel involved in the project and to mitigate potential risks, we completed a thorough site survey. Based on our assessment, we requested the client to backfill the designated areas with 100% compaction. A plate load test was conducted to make sure the ground was 100% compacted. Further, we used wooden mats to spread the load of the cranes’ tracks.”
Thulaseedharan explained that the lifting initially involved the use of a 600t Terex Demag CC 2800 crawler crane but the Johnson Arabia team quickly realised that backfilling the site with 100% compaction led to stabilisation of the ground, ensuring there was no loose sand. This could further enable optimising the crane size to a smaller 350t Terex Demag CC 2200, which would lead to further reduction in overall costs for the customer as well as save time.
“We brought in our 350t Terex Demag CC 2200 with 160t SSL, which still provided a higher lifting capacity and size than required on this particular project. Having this redundant capacity mitigated any unexpected lifting issues.
“Additionally, the main boom length of the crane was adjusted to 108m. This modification enabled the team to reach the secondary location from the initial crane position efficiently, ensuring that all lifting operations were completed within the scheduled timeframe, cutting out delays due to crane adjustments,” said Thulaseedharan.
Happy client
The final result was a safe, timely and economical execution of the lifting project, adding another feather to Johnson Arabia’s cap and keeping up their tradition of perfect lifting project executions for clients, he added.
“We received a special thanks from the client for the lifting operations going so well and quickly, and also for the cost savings. Both the client and the consultants were happy and their comment was that it was ‘great work by Johnson Arabia yet again’.”