The Tabreed Northshore District Cooling project, for which Atkins is lead consultant and construction supervisor, has reached a major milestone with the completion of two 87-metre micro-tunnels underneath the King Faisal Highway.
The parallel 900mm diameter insulated carbon steel pipes carry district cooling water from the Diplomatic Area chiller plant to Bahrain Financial Harbour, Reef Island and other northshore developments.
The Diplomatic Area chiller plant, which is nearing completion, has been designed to incorporate significant capacity for future growth. It will supply chilled water to the Atkins-designed Bahrain World Trade Center, among other developments on the south side of King Faisal Highway.
The project is the first of its kind in Bahrain and will provide a network of chilled water and cooling to Manama's densely populated urban areas, significantly reducing the cost of providing air-conditioning to offices, residential towers and shopping malls. Air conditioning is a major component of energy usage and analysts estimate that nearly 70% of all energy within the Gulf region is used for cooling buildings.
At a depth of more than 10 metres below ground, the new tunnels were driven below the highway with zero impact on the heavy traffic above. Both were driven at an average rate of close to six metres per day and using a laser guidance system the team achieved driving tolerances within ± 20mm in each tunnel.
Using a Herrenknecht micro-tunnelling machine Al Husam International and Atkins demonstrated on behalf of Tabreed District Cooling that chilled water piping systems can be quickly and efficiently installed beneath a city centre with virtually no disruption to the busy street life above.
Atkins' Site Operations Manager, Ian Cordingley, expressed his appreciation of the work undertaken by the team. "It's not easy to drill through 86-metres of earth with such little disturbance to the surroundings. The team did a fantastic job in ensuring we deliver a chilled water network that will make the cooling of developments in Manama more economical and help in reducing Bahrain's carbon footprint."
It is anticipated that Tabreed's Northshore District Cooling project will be completed this summer and will supply 22,800 metric tonnes of chilled water per day to a growing population.
-Ends-Atkins (www.atkinsglobal.com) is the UK's largest engineering and design consultancy and the world's 11th largest design firm. We have the depth and breadth of expertise to respond to the most technically challenging and time-critical infrastructure projects and the urgent transition to a low-carbon economy. Whether it's the concept for a new skyscraper, the upgrade of a rail network, the modelling of a flood defence system or the improvement of a management process, we plan, design and enable solutions.
Recent projects include:
- Major infrastructure works, such as the design and programme management of the civil works for the Dubai Metro red and green lines;
- High profile transport planning and urban design - our innovative scheme to deliver a diagonal crossing at London's Oxford Circus has helped tackle the problem of pedestrian crowding;
- Key rail projects - providing architectural and engineering design services on London's Crossrail, Europe's biggest civil engineering project, and designing stations, tunnelling and track systems on Gautrain, South Africa's first high speed line.
- Multidisciplinary building design - North Wood Primary School in Darlington is an exemplar project which raises standards for environmental design and community engagement;
- Vital water and environmental projects - as part of a joint venture, Atkins is providing technical assistance to the Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Reform Programme in Nigeria, which will benefit up to three million people.
Atkins was named Consultancy of the Year in the CIBSE Low Carbon Performance Awards 2010; received the first ever certification of the Carbon Trust Standard awarded to an engineering consultancy in the construction sector; named in The Times Top 50 Companies Where Women Want to Work 2009; and The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers 2009. The company was also construction and civil engineering sector winner for the fourth consecutive year in the Target National Graduate Recruitment Awards 2009.
Atkins is the official engineering design services provider for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.For more information:
Ben Thompson
PR and Communications Manager, Atkins
Ben.thomspson@atkinsglobal.com
Tel: + 9714 4059300
Fax: + 9714 4059301
© Press Release 2010
