₦airaland Forum

Gidoka:
Broda no mind am, somebody build house for this period him dey complain

That one sef no b house 2 me, na paradise....

Gidoka:
Show us ur father's own

Brros small small na, take am easy

fendorf:
Wow amazing,I hope Nigeria will get it right someday

I pray they will.

Survived the jump? Thats wonderful.

Davidhero:
Infact i was glued to the screen of my laptop watching.

The part that got me shocking was when the started refilling the sand back into the see with stones, sea divers did their job too.

That island construction is one the most amazing engineering feat ever.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3669796/Forget-applying-Irish-papers-Brexit-threatens-restrict-travel-EU-UK-citizens-world-s-powerful-passports-revealed.html

Find peace ma'am. God be with those you left behind....

DEIFIED:
Woww, this is wonderfull. op i believe you have seen this >>http://listverse.com/2016/09/04/10-real-places-on-earth-that-seem-scientifically-impossible/

Im just checking it now bro, that park that goes under water every spring got me. Ive seen it before though, its amazing.

Adesiji77:
Dubai is indeed a jewel in the desert.

You really need to view the city from Burj Khalifa Tower...you will love it.

Would have loved to be there this year but "dollar don cost"

Nice one @Explorers

The dollar na d issue now o no be visa again.

Davidhero:
I watched a documentary on how this island was constructed.

It was amazing ....

Really amazing bro, these pictures are not enough.

To own a plot here, you need cash, a lot of cash. The best plots sells for up $50million.

Finally, boats with huge suction engines smooths the rough edges, then the island is ready for people to move in.

They shoot the sand back into the sea till the rough shape of the island rises above the sea surface.

It takes a whole fleet of dredgers with satellite feeding the exact shape of the island into their navigation systems.

This is the type of machine/dredger used to build the island. It can reap up to 100,000 tons of sand and rocks from the sea floor weekly.

Dubai is the fastest growing desert city in the world, to attract the super rich and sustain the growth, it needs a beach for real estate which is limited in supply.


So the engineers came up with this, man made islands shaped like a giant palm tree and the world map. It is an extreme feat of engineering.

More than the size of a thousand football field, sitting on almost 7million tons of rocks, 150million tons of sand, and creating space for almost 5000 homes. A luxury resort built right into the ocean.

The newly constructed jackup rig, cost about $165M and having up to 1000 people working on it.

The water is over 200ft deep, at the bottom, up to 2miles of rocks and sand sitting on the oil field.

Most of Dubai's wealth and economic growth comes from a geological treasure, oil. But extracting it another major challenge for the engineers.

The arabian gulf has more oil than anywhere else on the planet, holding over 500Billion barrels of oil but tapping is difficult.

About four times a year, this crew wash the Burj Al Arab because of the sand storm. It takes about fourteen nights to wash the sand off the building to make it shine again.

But when the wind blow from the desert, there's another threat, sand.

The most violent sand storm can shutdown the city for days, hold traffic, or ground planes.

Inside the skeleton are shock absorbers, these moves against the direction of the winds and reduces the motion.

But that's not enough to protect other parts of the building. In Burj Al Arab the most impressive technology is underneath.

The wind blowing across the gulf are so strong that they could bend or even break the concrete core of the building.

So engineers wrapped Burj Al Arab in a strong steel frame, bolted to a steel spine(exoskeleton) to stabilize the concrete core during severe storm.

At full speed, the engine reach over 150kmph, that's a strong and severe storm. The testing crew add water to the wind from the engine as rain, the slightest crack will bring water to the other side of the glass.

If the inspectors spot water inside or other side of the glass, it means the design has failed.

The Burl Al Arab is one of the tallest and most expensive hotels in the world. A week here in the VIP palace can cost up to $100,000.

The wind in Dubai can reach up to 80mph, protecting the buildings from the wind is another tough challenge for the city engineers.

This is the testing facility for their designs. They use the wind from an old aircraft's engine as a giant wind machine to test the thickness of the glasses on the buildings and how they can withstand the desert wind/storm.

Another challenge is protecting the buildings from the severe desert storms in Dubai.

Some skyscrapers in Dubai have over 75,000 tons of concrete, casting it during the day in desert heat is another big problem.

Sometimes temperature can hit 50°c, that's a lot of heat. Mixing concrete this time can be dangerous, the heat can give cracks to the building. Cracks can make the building crumble, so engineers have to cast through the night.

Another massive challenge is keeping Dubai's skyscrapers standing tall on the soft desert sand around the city. Dubai is one of the toughest places in the world to construct skyscrapers.

The foundation/pillars need solid rocks to rest on which goes down deep to avoid sinking of the building. To reach the bedrock, engineers must drill over 150ft of sand deep down and pour into each hole about 100tons of concrete with steel cages. This hardens to a rigid pillar called the foundation pile.

Engineers use this same technology to pump water around the city with huge pipes buried deep under the city hidden from the scorching sun. This supplies each citizen about 145 gallons of water each day.

Using a single giant pumping machine to pump water to the top of Burj Khalifa could be dangerous(163 floors).

Forcing water up to this high level take extreme pressure which could make the pump/pipes explode.

So the engineers pump the water up in stages. First to the huge reservoir on the 48th floor and to another floor till it reaches the top of the building. Getting to the top, the water easily flows back down for the demand of the inhabitants.

Almost a quater million of gallons of water pass through the building per day.

Today the city relies on huge desalination plant that turns sea water to fresh water(550 million US gallons per day).

Pumping the water around the city and skyscrappers like the Burj Khalifa is another huge challenge for the engineers.

But the water didnt all vanish, as desert consumes the area, some of the rivers moved underground. Today, the rivers are still flowing in the rocks deep under city. But its not enough to meet the demands of the expanding metropolis.

About two million years ago, Dubai was really a wet place with mighty rivers flowing. But over time, temperature rose and the rivers ran dry.