Marina Bay Sands - Engineering Masterpiece

During the construction of Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, engineers had to face such a challenge that they had never imagined. According to the building design a Sky Park was going to be built on top of three towers. Whose size was supposed to be larger than US Navy's Nimitz aircraft carrier. And when it was time for the construction of the Sky Park then engineers found a major fault in the building design. The fault was that the three buildings might swing up to 200 mm during tornado. And if the sky park was built despite this fault then the swimming pool filled with 15 lakh litres of water might get cracked. And the destruction that it would cause is unimaginable. On the one hand years of hard work and millions of dollars were spent on this project and in the other hand to drop the idea of Sky Park, would be like compromising with the beauty of the entire structure. They need to find a solution which would keep the Sky Park safe despite the swinging of the building during strong winds. This was such a serious issue that the entire construction and architecture team was anxious. But a miracle happened. Welcome back again to Zem TV Videos. Viewers, Singapore is a country which has only one city and that is Singapore. The entire country is so small that it is slightly larger than the Indian city of Mumbai and a little smaller than the Pakistani capital Islamabad. Singapore Marina Bay Sands is one of the most complicated construction projects in the entire world. And that's why it is called engineering masterpiece. Engineers had to construct not one but three buildings. Buildings whose one portion was going to be bend and that too taking support from the other portion. The project costing $8 billion or Rs. 60 cr had three buildings 680 feet high, a sky park bigger than the aircraft carrier, 200 feet high arts Museum and a floating entertainment pavilion were going to be constructed. That too above the water. The cost at which Marina Bay Sands was built five Burj Khalifa like buildings could have been made. And the labour and hardwork, need to make this masterpiece was an astounding 16,500 workers, who worked together. Construction workers and engineers faced many challenges like, from laying the foundation on a soft wet soil near the seashore to construct a curved shaped structure and a unique Sky Park over it. This was not only the first challenge of their life, but no construction project in the past have faced this kind of challenge. Let's come and see the challenges and their solutions. Challenge no. 1 It was American business tycoon and the owner of Las Vegas Sands Corporation Sheldon Adelson who was behind the project. Who has been often featured in Forbes richest list. Adelson wanted to build a project that it would become the identity of Singapore. And obviously for such a project, its design has to be very unique. For this purpose, there was no better option than an architect like Moshe Safdie whose curved designs are mind-boggling, but they are difficult to construct. After months of hard work, Safdie presented his design. But this design presented a big challenge for the construction team. According to the construction team, it would take at least seven years to complete the project. But Sheldon Adelson wanted to complete the project within three years. In these three years, the entire project with the three towers, its interior, museum, floating pavilion, and the most complex - sky park needed to be built. Accepting the challenge was a big achievement for the construction team in itself. Challenge no. 2 The site chosen for the construction work was full of soft clay due to the proximity of the sea. Which engineers call it marine clay. The marine clay is very soft and it's very hard to walk over it let alone construct something. And if the marine clay is not treated correctly then it can prove disastrous. Which was evident in Singapore's Nicoll Highway case. A feature of marine clay is that if some of the clay is removed using the excavator the clay surrounding the ditch fills it quickly. Therefore it was necessary to find out a solid solution so that the clay surrounding the ditch is not able to fill it. To address this issue, engineers decided to build a concrete wall of 1.5m thickness. Which is also called diaphragm wall. 4000m diaphragm wall was constructed, with a depth of 50m below the ground. And with the help of excavators the marine clay was removed inside them. It took engineers one years to remove the marine clay. Now they were left with two years to complete the project. Challenge no. 3 After getting rid of the marine clay, engineers were left with only two years to complete the entire Marina Bay Sands. And this was really a very difficult task. The engineering team didn't budge down and decided to construct every part of the project simultaneously. But for that a large number of workers was required. A mind-boggling 16,500 workers were hired to work day and night, in shifts. It was a daunting task to manage this army of workers and providing them food. For this purpose world's biggest canteen was made. In this canteen, just for preparing one time meal $82500 was spent. Challenge no. 4 The complication for the construction of the three towers was that one portion was straight and the other one was curved at a certain angle. And both parts will stand in support of each other. On paper, it looks easy, but practically building this was a challenge that nobody has ever tried anything like this before. If it is not constructed with proper planning and calculation then the weight of the curved portion might break the straight portion. As you can see in this domino effect. To implement this design practically engineers found a very effective way. With the help of concrete blocks, a floor was erected every four days. Steel wires were inserted inside the curved building for support and as the height of the buildings increased, both the buildings were given temporary support of steel frames. it was 23rd floor where the curved portion met the straight building there, with the help of a heavy steel truss both the portions were joined. And the steel frames were removed. Challenge no. 5 1.5 years have passed The construction of three buildings of the Marina Bay Sands, arts Museum, and floating crystal pavilion was completed, And their finishing work was going on. But still, one portion was still left to be constructed. And that was 1115 feet long Sky Park. Which was needed to be constructed on the top of three towers. And the engineering team had six months to complete this task. Almost all the luxury hotels and resorts in the world have a lot of open space, along with all the facilities where gardens and pools are constructed. But as the Marina Bay Sands was being constructed in a very congested area, that's why it doesn't contain any open space. Therefore while designing, it was decided to have a large Sky Park at the top of the buildings. Which will host 150 ft long infinity pool, gardens, open-air restaurants, yoga Centre and an observation deck will be made to witness a 360° view of Singapore. But the moment when the sky Park was about to be constructed the engineers detected a major fault. Which resulted in the delay of the construction of the Sky Park. As all the three towers were build independent of each other That is there was no connection between them. That's why engineers believed that during strong winds the buildings might swing in different directions. And if the Sky Park is constructed despite this it could be disastrous. To assess this risk, a wind tunnel test of the project model was required. With the help of wind engineering company CPP pressure sensors were attached to the weak points of the model. And it was tested against an artificial typhoon. Unfortunately the result was positive. Wind engineers exactly revealed that during a tornado the top of the three buildings might swing up to 200 mm. Almost like the length of a mobile or a little more. Although it doesn't seem a big swing. But the nature of concrete is that it is not flexible. A little bit pressure can crack the concrete. If the sky park is built disregarding this risk, then during storms cracks might appear in 150 ft long infinity pool and eventually a portion of the Sky Park might collapsed. The news was depressing for the entire construction and architecture team. On one hand, there was 1.5 years of hard work of 16,500 workers whereas on the other hand millions and millions of dollars were spent. For the past 1.5 years workers, staff and engineers became emotionally attached to the three towers. Therefore it was not an option to break and rebuild the entire structure once again. Engineers had to find a solution to keep the Sky Park safe despite the swinging. After months of brainstorming a solution was found. Utilising the bridge engineering technology, it was decided to introduce movement joints. Where the entire Sky Park will be built upon a steel bridge, laid over the three buildings. Special movement joins will be there in this steel bridge, which could absorb up to 250 mm movement. Everyone understood the solution but for that, it was necessary to build the Sky Park in three different parts. That is, now it was not possible to build a 150 m long infinity pool. Engineers decided to divide the infinity pool in three sections of 50 m each. And some space will be given in between them for movement. Challenge no. 6 In total 1400 ton steel was needed to be used in the construction of the Sky Park. That is a weight similar to two Antonov 225 Mriya, world's biggest cargo plane. It was impossible to transport this much weight to the top. Therefore it was decided to divide the construction of the Sky Park into 14 segments and assembling them on the top. To carry the 14 big steel structures to the top of the tower, word's biggest lift was installed with the help of Swiss-French company VSL. Which would carry one segment to the top in 16 hours. As soon as the lifting process started, the danger of sea storms started lurking. This hanging 100 ton steel structure could damage the building by swinging in the storm and also it can fell down. The lifting process started in the morning, was suspended for many hours due to storm and finally by midnight it successfully reached the top. Similarly, one by one the entire 100 ton steel structure was lifted and the sky park was completed by assembling them. Instead of 2009, construction of Marina Bay Sands was completed in 2010 with a delay of one year owing to the Sky Park. Today Marina Bay Sands hosts lakhs of visitors daily but the hard work of 16,500 workers to build this masterpiece will always be remembered. Hope you will like and share this Zem TV video. My heartfelt appreciation for your loving comments. We'll meet you in another amazing video.