On November 1st, 2023, Abu Dhabi Airport Terminal A was officially operational. As one of the key infrastructure projects of Abu Dhabi Vision 2030, the new terminal will greatly expand Abu Dhabi Airport’s operational capacity to 45 million passengers annually, handling 11,000 passengers per hour and accommodating 79 passenger planes at the same time, injecting new vitality into the city connecting Europe and Asia.
As one of the few companies with the ability to build complex projects, CSCEC ME stood out from its international competitors and took on three important packages of steel structure construction, MEP installation and several airport roads construction, making it the most comprehensive international contractor involved in the widest range of construction works for Terminal A and the heaviest task to be undertaken by the Company.
Abu Dhabi International Airport is the largest airport in the Middle East. The dynamic shape of the hill-like floating roof will be the first streamlined bionic-shaped airport building, but the beautiful design also makes the steel construction difficult in a way that is second to none in the world.
Abu Dhabi International Airport Terminal A is in the shape of an X and the Project covers an area of 740,000 square meters. The central hall uses nearly 50,000 tons of steel and consists of 18 main arches of double curved steel without columns, with a maximum span of 180 meters, an arch height of 56 meters, a weight of about 900 tons, and a maximum plate thickness of 250mm, making it a complex structure with high construction difficulty.
To ensure the smooth construction of the Project, CSCEC ME for the first time independently designed tire frame for the oversea market. It has been widely used to support the shaped, large-span structure by the Chinese construction workers and local Chinese called the new airport in Abu Dhabi, the “Chinese beam”. At the same time, the design and construction of the project adopted Building Information Modeling (BIM) to manage the whole design and construction process and complied with the concept ESTIDAMA to meet the green building standards of 2PEARL.
Currently, Abu Dhabi Airport has three terminal buildings, but limited by the design era and construction scale, with the increasing number of tourists to the UAE, the old airport has been unable to meet the aviation development needs of Abu Dhabi. H.H Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, has said that the terminal’s increased capacity is a crucial driver of tourism growth that will advance the aviation sector and deliver a significant step-change for economic and sustainable development in Abu Dhabi. H.H Sheikh Khaled said it would also consolidate Abu Dhabi’s position as a global tourism destination and a leading hub for aviation.
The opening of the new terminal building of Abu Dhabi Airport is a concrete practice for CSCEC ME to fulfill the corporate mission of expanding the happy living environment and build an even better life, which will further promote the economic development of the UAE and benefit the local people.