Servicing the Burj

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Delivery of the plant to the upper levels of the building has been carried out by a mix of craning for the larger items, plus the use of temporary hoists and final lifts for smaller materials.

To enable the speed of construction to continue unhindered, the MEP contractor has opted to crane in large-scale pipes from the top of the building directly into the central core.

The structure and layout of the building have meant that the use of prefabrication was limited. "Ideally in a project of this scale you'd want to prefabricate as many services as possible and install it in big sections, but it wasn't really possible," states Mitchell.

The complex geometry of the building and compact nature of many plantrooms has meant that a lot of materials are taken to site and assembled in situ," adds Sang.

Where possible, pipework assemblies for chilled water, plumbing and drainage systems have been assembled in a specially created off-site workshop by the MEP contractor, but most is fabricated on site. All ductwork sections are being prefabricated off-site.

The fact that the structural works have always been well in advance of MEP in the tower also makes it difficult to crane large prefabricated assemblies into place," explains Sang.

Several areas of the building are being worked on simultaneously by the MEP contractor. "The risers are independently supported from the horizontal distribution," explains Mitchell.

"[The contractor] is working in many different zones at the same time in the plantrooms, distribution and the risers have gone up with the structure," he adds.

The removal of the plant at the end of its lifespan has also been considered. Plantrooms are located adjacent to the service lifts, with the elevators sized to cater for the largest section of plant that must be removed - the transformers.

The plantroom layouts have also been designed so the routing to the elevator is free of any equipment so there is no need to stop any operations while replacing equipment.

Sustainable considerations

Although the building has not been assigned a sustainable building rating to date, a future assessment is planned with a view to establishing a rating based on the building design, materials and construction, reports Sang.

Several energy saving technologies have been implemented throughout the MEP services design, including the collection of air handling unit condensate water for use in the pre-cooling of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) mains water plus irrigation.

In addition, there is an extensive use of variable speed drives wherever possible throughout the tower, in particular on the main chilled water pumps, plumbing pumps, plus supply and exhaust fans.

Thermal wheels have been added to the air handling units in order to reclaim as much heat energy as possible and a sophisticated two-port valve control system has been added to the chilled water, air handling units and fan coil units; this includes pressure independent control valves.

The building management system will be set up to optimise energy savings between the variable speed drives and the two-port valve control system," explains Sang.

Further measures include the introduction of a system to measure supply and exhaust air rates and pressures to ensure that they are balanced throughout the various building zones and air leakage out of or into the building is minimised.

The high-specification facade system specified for the project will reduce solar heat gains, hence cooling loads thanks to a low-e coating, low U-value and low glazing shading co-efficients.

Within the electrical systems, a lighting control system has been used throughout and energy efficient T5 lamps are being installed for areas such as the car park, plantrooms and back of house areas. Electronic control gear will be used to provide lighting control.

An extensive power monitoring and metering system is being installed, plus a power correction factor of 0.95 has been applied to electrical equipment in lieu of the required 0.90, again reducing the energy usage. High efficiency, low loss resin block power transformers have been installed as standard.

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