CASE STUDY — Tall Buildings

INVESTIGATION OF LOCATIONS FOR CORING WORK IN CONCRETE SLAB

Aquila conducted scanning of a concrete floor slab in a landmark office tower in Saudi Arabia to establish the precise locations of cables, ducting and reinforcement – enabling holes to be cut in the slab by means of coring for the routing of new services.

Project Impacts

Safe locations for coring holes in the slab could be identified

Non-destructive scanning of the slab at selected locations enabled the routing of rebar, cables and ducting in the slab to be visualized (shown here on the AQUILA inspector’s iPad).

Simple, immediate and absolutely reliable record-keeping

Virtual-reality photographs, taken using the iPad and immediately saved to the cloud-based project file, provided a perfect record of the findings – no possibility for the data to be lost, damaged or incorrectly communicated to others.

Facts & Figures

1 hour

The time it took to conduct the non-destructive testing, ensuring the coring work would cause no serious damage to the building structure or any existing services.

2

The number of locations for which safe spots to core through the concrete slab were identified by NDT scanning.

1%

The cost of AQUILA’s performing NDT scanning to ensure that cutting or coring into concrete does not damage post-tensioning cables etc. is likely to be less than 1% of the potential cost of the damage that might otherwise be caused.

TECHNOLOGY OUTPUTS

Establishing locations of critical elements in the concrete slab
Visualization on the inspector’s iPad of the locations of post-tensioning ducts and steel reinforcement bars in the concrete slab at a location where coring was proposed.
Visualization of locations of cables, ducts and rebars using Augmented Reality
The use of the GP8100 device to scan an area of slab results in AR-visualization that virtually guarantees that critical ducting and cables will not be damaged during cutting or coring.

EQUIPMENT USED

INSPECT Software
All data and photographs are saved on the inspector’s iPad and immediately transmitted to the cloud-based INSPECT system for long-term storage or for sharing with others.
GP8100 ground-penetrating radar device
NDT scanning of concrete slab to establish layout of rebars, cables and ducts.

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Read full technical report

The Al-Majdoul Tower is a commercial skyscraper in the King Fahd District of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It was constructed between 2012 and 2019 with a height of 244 m and a distinctive twisted design.

THE CHALLENGE

The client wished to establish the feasibility of coring through a post-tensioned concrete slab at two locations on the 37th floor of the building.

AQUILA’S SOLUTION

Efficient, reliable and non-destructive

AQUILA was contracted in February 2024 to carry out scanning of the areas in question using advanced ground-penetrating radar (GPR) technology, establishing the locations of post-tensioning cables and reinforcement bars (rebar) within the slab. This would enable coring work to be carried out at suitable locations, avoiding damage to critical elements.

A facility-specific model was created on the INSPECT software platform upon receipt of a drawing showing the floor layout of the area in question. Then, AQUILA’s inspectors defined two so-called “SPOTS” in this digital model, to which their observations and NDT results could be assigned for easy reference at any time in the future. The recorded data was transmitted directly from the NDT equipment to the INSPECT software using an iPad Pro. This all took place directly at the inspection location with immediate upload to the INSPECT server, making it possible for further specialists in remote locations to provide immediate support if required.

CLIENT BENEFITS

Structural damage avoided during coring work, minimizing costs and disruption

Using the GP8100 ground-penetrating radar device, the presence, orientation and depth of several post-tensioning cables were established and recorded, with key details marked on the concrete slab to ensure they would be avoided during the proposed coring work. The data associated with each SPOT, as recorded on the INSPECT platform, was provided in an inspection report. All images and 2D/3D scans can be accessed via the INSPECT portal using a provided login and password.

The scanning work carried out enabled the responsible engineers to conclude that coring should not be performed at the proposed locations. However, further scanning was conducted, enabling suitable locations for such coring work to be identified.

As a result, the client was able to relax in the knowledge that the required holes could be created in the floor slab at suitable locations without jeopardizing the structure or causing any disruption to the structure’s use – an excellent return on the cost of carrying out a professional NDT investigation in this way.