Pumps from Schwing Stetter is providing concrete for the tallest building in the world

  At more than 1,000 metres in height, the Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, will be the tallest building in the world after its scheduled completion in 2020. The publicly accessible observation deck, which offers a breathtaking view over the kingdom at a height of 630 metres, will break another world record. The skyscraper is part of a new urban development project in Kingdom City, in the North of Jeddah.

The architectural office Adrian Smith + Gordon Grill Architecture based in Chicago, designed the building for Jeddah Economic Company. A hotel, offices, apartments and a shopping centre will be housed on more than 530,000 sq.m. spread over 240 floors. The Tower is divided into two parts: the “Residential Tower” comprising 167 floors up to a height of 674 metres. This is followed by the “Spire” spiralling up to a height of 962 metres and comprising floors 168 to 240. Up to this level, the building will be constructed in reinforced concrete, also constituting a world record. From then on, the “Steel Spire Pinnacle”, the final apex, constructed from steel elements, will be going up to the planned height of over 1,000 metres.

For the concrete logistics of this demanding construction project, the executing construction company Saudi Binladin Group is banking again on the expertise and products of Schwing Stetter. The long established company has already completed numerous demanding construction projects in the region and has a reputation for reliability and construction expertise.

Two on-site Stetter HN 3.0 batching plants are producing the concrete necessary for the mega-project in order to avoid long drives with incalculable delays in the concrete supply. Four SCHWING SP 8800 D stationary pumps with an engine power of around 450 kW each and a maximum feed pressure of up to 243 bar are available for high-rise pumping of the fresh concrete. A high-performance, self-compacting concrete (SCC) C85 will be used for the construction phase up to a height of around 400 metres.
For placing concrete, the Saudi Binladin Group is using a total of five separate SCHWING concrete placing booms (SPB). Three SPB 35 and two SPB 30 booms raise along with the building to be used by the contractor‘s experienced team for placing concrete up to a height of over 950 metres.

Part of the SCHWING Stetter order also include over 1,000 metres of pumping line for the first construction phase up to 200 metres in height, including the important fixing accessories. At theses hights discharge pressures significantly above 200 bar and high outputs means reliable and durable fastening of the delivery pipes is necessary to ensure high occupational and operational safety. While planning the placement of the stationary pumps, lay-out of the pumping lines and determining the best locations for the separate placing booms, the Saudi Binladin Group was able to fall back on the expertise of the SCHWING Stetter engineers.

The bored piles reaching more than 120 metres deep into the ground ensure stable conditions. The bottom plate front built on these was concreted in several phases with SCHWING truck-mounted concrete pumps.