New Doha International Airport Design and Construction - Research Paper Example

New Doha International Airport Design and Construction September 13, Outline Introduction 2. Airport design 3. Construction 3.1 Length of site roads 3.2 Number of batch plants 3.3 Total volume of earthworks 3.4 Structural concrete and steel reinforcement 3.5 Structural steel 3.6 Area of reclamation and Landscaping References 1. Introduction This paper will discuss the design and construction of the New Doha International Airport (NDIA). The New Doha International Airport is a new airport in Qatar and one that Qatar can be proud of. The New Doha International Airport was designed to be a world-class airport with excellent operational efficiency. There have also been some monumental construction efforts involved in building this great landmark. The construction of the New Doha International Airport is divided into 4 packages. Area 1 includes airfield earthwork, paving and drainage. Area 2 including Air Traffic Control (ATC) systems and site utilities. Area 3 includes airport terminal facilities, while Area 4 includes landscaping and support buildings for the airport. 2. Airport design The New Doha International Airport is designed to cover more than 22 square kilometers of land, which amounts to about one quarter the size of the old city of Doha, and about 3 times the size of the existing airport in Doha. The airport is designed to cater to as many as 50 million people, 2 million tones of luggage, and also handle as many as 320,000 aircraft takeoffs and landings per year. “By opening day, as many as 8,700 passengers can go through the terminal complex in a single hour. The airport’s eastern runway will be 4,850 meters long, only150 meters shorter than the longest commercial runway in the world at Ulyanovsk-Vostochny International Airport in Russia. By opening day, the 350,000+ square meter passenger terminal facility will be the largest building in Doha, covering an area equivalent to 50 full size football pitches. As such, it will be bigger than Doha’s City Center Plaza which has an internal area of 290,000 m2. Flights and passenger processing facilities will be organized in a way to minimize walking distances for various travelers. Moving walkways will also help to shorten the distances to the contact gates. The new airport check-in and retail areas alone will be big enough to squeeze in ten wide body aircraft. When completed, this area will be about 12 times bigger than the retail and check-in areas at the existing facility, making the journey through check-in much quicker, and the shopping experience more varied.” (Airport Technology - New Doha International Airport, Qatar). The New Doha International Airport is designed to be one of the most advanced airports in the world, and will serve as home to Qatar Airways, which is a leading airline worldwide. The airport is designed to be able to handle operations of some of the biggest passenger planes in the world, including the airbus A380 The New Doha International Airport is also designed to deal with growing amounts of traffic on the airport, handling approximately 24 million passengers in its opening year. This figure is 3 times as much as the capacity that the current airport handles. When finally completed, the new Doha International Airport will be capable of catering to more than 50 million passengers. According to the menareport.com financial news website, the new airport is expected to have a capacity of up to 93 million passengers, making it the second biggest capacity holder in the region, second only to Dubai. The retail area and check-in area of the new airport are expected to be 12 times as large as the current airport. Moving walkways will be installed in order to effectively manage the expected heavy traffic. Another important part of the design of the airport is the 5-star luxury hotel and the 3-star transit hotel. The new airport has an oasis theme and most of the buildings in the airport are water-themed, having waved roofs and depicting a growing of desert plants in recycled water. In order to emphasize the modernity of the airport, there has been an ongoing environmental project also being undertaken around the premises of the new airport. Some parts of the site have been built on top of a landfill that has been moved to a cleaner and more organized facility. Thus, the construction of the new airport has also brought about the biggest landfill relocation in the Gulf region. The design of the new Doha International Airport includes a single runway stretching for about 4.85 kilometers, which will cater specifically for the new Airbus A-380. a three storey building was also designed as the terminal building, as well as 24 contact gates and 7 remote gates. The airport design includes 3 new major road interchanges, which will provide acess between the city and the newly constructed airport. The airport is also designed to have about 17 kilometers of both single carriage-way and dual carriage-way roads. “When completed, the new Doha International Airport will be able to handle 50 million passengers, 2 million tons of cargo, and 320,000 aircraft landings and takeoffs each year. The airport has an opening capacity of 24 million passengers. This equates to 30 times the current population of Doha. It will also be able to handle 750,000 tons of cargo every year.” (Gulfnews: Qatar targets 24m annual passengers in new airport) The control tower is designed to be about 80 meters high, and is shaped like a crescent. This provides a key night feature shining on the facilities in the airport. “The new Doha International Airport will create thousands of airport, airline, government, and private sector jobs for men and women in Qatar. The multiplier effect will create more support jobs off airport. Over 100 hectares alongside the new airport have been reserved for commercial development. Private development opportunities include free trade zone, office and Business Park, hotels, and retail mall.” (http://www.ndiaproject.com). This will have the effect of diversifying the revenue of the new airport and help in creating more jobs for workers in Doha. 3. Construction The new Doha International Airport was constructed near the city of Doha, and is estimated to be as large as two-thirds of the city size when completed. The new Doha International Airport steering committee and the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority (QCAA) are responsible for the completion of the new airport. The construction contract for the first phase of the new airport was awarded to Bechtel group. Construction work began in 2004 after the design phase and detailed planning of the project, with the contractor producing a master plan of the new airport. Construction work on the new airport continued with a massive landfill/land reclamation project, as more than 50 percent of the airport premises was to be constructed on land reclaimed from the sea, up to the tune of 10.9 square miles. This landfill project required more than 50 million cubic meters of landfill material, and 4 big dredgers were used to carry out the work. “More than sixty million cubic meters of fill will be reclaimed from the sea and used as fill to create the site. This is the equivalent of adding 1 meter of soil to 9200 football pitches. Fill material was borrowed from areas approved by the Supreme Council of Environment. Over 6.2 million cubic meters of improperly disposed household waist has been removed from the site and disposed off properly in an engineered landfill. This is the largest such environmental program ever in the Gulf region.” (Middle East news information). After the land reclamation was completed in 2005, about 13 kilometers of armored sea-walling was constructed to protect the reclaimed area. The first phase of construction on the new Doha International Airport included the construction of a single runway of approximately 4,850 meters, designed specifically to accommodate the big Airbus A-380-800 super jumbo airplane. A 3-storey terminal building was also constructed, as well as 24 contact gates. Provision was also made for retail space, as 350,000 square meters of floor space has been constructed. In May 2006, the company Takenaka was awarded a major construction contract of about 27 billion Yen on the new Doha International Airport. The contract covered the construction of the Emiri terminal, which included an area of 9,100 square meters and 1,700 square meters of parking space. This terminal was designed for the exclusive use of the royal family and for VIPs on state visits. The construction of the terminal featured a curved, multilayered arch-shaped design that was built to look like a yatch sail. The contractor was given the task of building a new two floor car park building with a capacity of about 1,409 vehicles and a mosque of approximately 2000 square meters, 13 meters high, a radius spanning 47 meters and a minaret of height 37 meters. After completion of construction work on the terminal, it is expected that the terminal will be equipped with mobile walkways that would aid in the movement of passengers around the premises. A heat occupancy sensor will also be constructed, as well as carbon dioxide sensors. This technology will enable airport services to be tailored according to the number of current passengers, thereby regulating the air intake at the terminal. The wave-like roof of the terminal is constructed in such a way that the roof will be tinted, thereby helping to conserve energy and, prevent the glare of the sunlight. “In order to conserve energy the passenger terminal curtain walls are coated to reduce solar exposure, the roof overhang provides shade and the roof is insulated. The mechanical systems include CO2 sensors to regulate air intake based on occupancy, our stratification and displacement ventilation. The electrical system has daylight monitoring and occupancy sensors. The landscaping uses desert-adopted species and irrigation water from recycled waste water.” (http://www.ndiaproject.com) 3.1 Length of site roads A total of 17 kilometers of temporary single carriageway and dual carriageway roads are being constructed within the airport to help facilitate quicker construction of the airport. These roads will be asphalted fully and provision will be made for traffic lights and other road safety features. 3.2 Number of batch plants This construction project is billed to have as many as 5 large capacity concrete batching plants on site during construction work. The concrete batching plants are expected to have a huge production capacity, as there would also be at least 6 asphalt batching plants that will be capable of producing 910 tons of asphalt every hour on site. 3.3 Total volume of earthworks The airport runways, aprons and taxiways are billed to use up 3.7 million tons of high quality polymer asphalt and an additional 115,000 cum of concrete. The Public roads require an addition 237,000 cum of asphalt. 3.4 Structural concrete and steel reinforcement Approximately 800,000 cum of concrete will be needed for facility structures, and 108,000 tons of steel reinforcement will be used during the course of the entire project. 3.5 Structural steel About 30,000 tons of structural steel will be utilized for the construction project. It is also expected that as many as 22 primary construction contracts will be awarded in the course of the project. 3.6 Area of reclamation and Landscaping A total area of more than 22 square kilometers is estimated for reclamation and the airport site and requires about 13 kilometers of armored sea walling. More than 40 hectares of land and soil will be landscaped with grass lawns, and it is estimated that over 3000 trees will be planted around the airport. References Airport Technology - New Doha International Airport, Qatar. Retrieved from Gulfnews: Qatar targets 24m annual passengers in new airport http://www.ndiaproject.com Middle East news information: $3.63 trillion earmarked for Middle East hotels and supporting tourism infrastructure. Retrieved from www.albawaba.com Read More