DTC Management and Mr. Omar Khalil from Arnaout Contracting Co signed a contract on November 4, 2019. The contract entails DTC to offer flooring services for Arabian Rig Manufacturing Factory located in Ras El Kheer based on an area of 130,000 square meters. The project was quite interesting as well as challenging for our team. The project was extremely special to our team because it was an effort in response to vision 2030 for KSA. For us, it was our way of contributing our efforts towards economic development and local property in KSA. Understanding the importance of the project our team worked hard and completed the project on October 1, 2021.
Slab-on-ground flooring
Once we signed the project we decided to offer them slab-on-ground flooring as it offers the benefits of withholding heavy load and also looks aesthetically appealing. To provide service we moved our state-of-the-art machinery to the Ras El Kheer facility. With the help of his machinery and expertise of our tecnicians, worers, and engineers we provided the slab-on-ground flooring all across the facility. The steps which we followed in laying down the floor are shared below:
Soil Preparation
To lay off the concrete slab on the ground it is necessary to treat the soil underneath. The soil should offer support to the concrete slab and the strength of the concrete slab depends upon the support level of the soil underneath. This is why our team performed extensive proof rolling after rough grading to prepare the soil for the installation of a concrete slab.
Grounding of concrete slab
Our team manufactured concrete mix with added reinforcement and spread it on the thin layer of granular structures above the treated soil. Once the concrete mix was spilled it was leveled with the help of machines and was left to dry.
Adequate Reinforcement
Without adequate reinforcement, the concrete slab can experience cracks due to shrinkage and the effects of temperature change. Such cracks can visibly damage the concrete slab by showing on the surface. To avoid such cracks, we add steel fibers by tieing them together so that they won’t travel inside the slab. Steel fibers help to reinforce the strength in concrete slabs and prevent them from any sort of damage or cracks.
Post tension reinforcement
We also instilled high compressive stress on the floor with the help of high-strength steel tendons. These post tension stress ensures to balance out any undesirable stress after the placement of the slab on the ground. This stress helps in lowering the chances of crack appearance.
Moisture absorbent
Proper treatment is required to prevent the slab-on-ground floor from penetrating moisture. For this purpose, we applied impermeable floor coating over the floor as a mechanism for moisture protection.
Applicaion of hot melt marking paint
Once our concrete slabs were put into place we also painted these with hot melt marking paint. This paint offers 3 advantages including
- It helped to cover the raw look of the concrete slab and gave the facility a colorful and pleasant environment.
- It gives an aesthetic appeal to the floor
- We divided various work sections and moving paths by using different colors. So the paint helped us in distinguishing the floor areas through color patterns.
