Ain Dubai, the giant observation wheel that has been shaping the development of Bluewaters Island for more than six years, will open on October 21, 2021, thus becoming the wheel of largest observation in the world. But it has not simply outperformed the competition; has deleted it.
First announced in February 2013, Ain Dubai has taken more than eight years to complete. Construction began in May 2015, with an expected completion date in early mid-2019. This date was later moved to October 20, 2020, which was postponed one more year when Expo 2020 was delayed a year due to the pandemic.
Although rumors were circulating about the reasons for the delays, the team behind Ain Dubai says that with any construction project of this scale, there will be retention obligations.
Capacity for 1,750 pilots
Darren Brooke, senior technical director at WSP (Ain Dubai’s chief consultant and record architect, who essentially designed the wheel), told CNN that his team was “constantly pushing standards.”
“[This has] the area of four times a standard wheel, [so] we’ve had to put a lot more emphasis on design, making sure the design approach is tuned as much as we can, even though we stay within the design standards. But refine it a lot to achieve an efficient and cost-effective design. “
And the figures associated with this design are impressive.
The structure used 11,200 tons of steel to build, about 33% more than the amount used to build the Eiffel Tower. The maximum force required to lift the wheel was 2,500 tons. The hub and spindle of the structure weighs 1,805 tons, equivalent to four A380 aircraft, while the combined weight of the rim and the 48 passenger cabins is 7,500 tons. If the 192 spokes that hold the wheel in place, each consisting of 107 separate 9mm thick wires, were placed together end to end, they would extend from Dubai to Cairo. Each of the 48 cabins is designed for 40 people, meaning up to 1,750 people can ride Ain Dubai at any time.
And, since Bluewaters is an island made of reclaimed land, the piles had to be drilled down to the bedrock to take on the weight of the structure.
World experience
When it comes to the passenger experience, since this is Dubai, it’s only natural that it exceeds your standard wheelbase.
There are three different types of booths for the 38-minute rotation: observation booths (the standard option), social booths (they are the “VIP” option and have a bar in the center of the booth) and private booths. which can be booked for special occasions and include the option of a private three-course dinner at two wheel rotations.
Putting all this into practice has meant gaining experience from all corners of the world: consultants from the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and Italy have contributed to key aspects of the design.
But perhaps his most important coup was to cordon off Kevin Dyer to take on the role of Ain Dubai’s chief operating officer. Dyer is the former technical director of the London Eye.
Although Ain Dubai has been designed to last 300,000 cycles, or 60 years, to comply with strict design and safety codes, there are measures that have been put in place to try to extend this service life.
Experts at the Milan Polytechnic, who also worked on the London Eye, worked on the analysis of the cables and tension cycles of the structure, Brooke said, to try to last as long as possible.
In doing so, they had been able to “double the life of the cables” by looking at the actual voltage cycles and loads on each of the London Eye cables, rather than the planned loads, Brooke said.
“The forces that each of these cables has is a maximum load of 300 tons. Each of these 192 cables enters the shafts or this hub. So you have a great concentration of force.”
Several cables were also equipped with accelerators to provide real-time data on each of the voltage cycles, which will be analyzed and intended to extend the life of the cables and therefore also the overall structure.
Earthquakes and storms
But the temporary works to help build the wheel have been as ambitious as the wheel itself.
A 135-meter-high framing structure, built from sections of crane masts, was used to drop the wheel legs into place. A 300-ton truss was built to secure the eight sections of the bank. A custom protection system then pushed each segment of the edge 100 meters into the air, where it was fixed to the spindle, rotated and another segment was fixed.
During this construction process, the structure was settled with rumors about design defects that contributed to the delayed opening date, from confiscated bearings that had to be replaced to sound problems with the cabins, which it meant they had to be redesigned.
However, Brooke strongly refutes these claims.
“I haven’t heard any rumors that are based on any facts. I’ve heard rumors that, for example, were sinking the foundations,” he says.
“Ain Dubai is the safest place to be in Dubai. And I mean it for two fundamental reasons. One, it’s designed for an earthquake of one in 2,475 years. The only other place that’s designed that way is a hospital It is also designed for storms of 100 miles per hour, i.e. the Hurricane 12 scale of the Beaufort scale ”.
A spokesman for Ain Dubai shared a similar sentiment: “What we have designed and developed here is enormously complex: it had never been done before, on such a large scale, so much of what we did was open up new avenues. .
“This, of course, means that along the way, things don’t always go to planning. We face challenges, but as is the spirit of Dubai, we have adapted, we have found solutions and we are confident that what we are offering with Ain Dubai eclipses anything that has come before ”.