Over the past 10 years the Sixense teams in the Middle East have accumulated a substantial amount of experience and have played a key role on many heritage projects. With its prime proficiency, Sixense is able to provide its clients with the best monitoring and engineering and digitalisation solutions for their projects.
Sixense is really proud to have secured major contracts with clients such as government entities like Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism and to have assisted build and protect what is part of the United Arab Emirates heritage.
While providing services for the projects detailed below, Sixense carried out instrumentation and monitoring for structures, soil and environment, as well as SHM (Structural Health Monitoring), 3D mapping, condition assessments, non-destructive tests, and engineering services.
Sixense expertise applied to Abu Dhabi national treasures
One of the most prestigious projects Sixense has been working on was Qasr Al Hosn. The old residence of the royalty was undergoing renovations for its redevelopment. The aim was to better integrate it within the city by opening it to the public as a national and natural history museum. As the building was highly sensitive, it needed to be monitored in real-time to avoid damages. Sixense provided structural, geotechnical, meteorological as well as seismic monitoring. To that purpose the teams in the field used many types of equipment in order to best accomplish their mission.
In this way, they deployed a group of robotic theodolites (Cyclops) to monitor the 3D movements, tiltmeters and crackmeters on the fort walls of the structure, piezometers for the monitoring of the water table behaviour and geophones (Gorgones) to measure the induced vibration of the structure.
Al Ain museum, the oldest museum in the country and one of Al Ain major attractions recognised nationally benefited from Sixense expertise. As the demand for offices and storage increased, a re-design was provided to harmonise the facilities including undergrounds. This meant deep excavation would be carried out in front of the highly valuable heritage structures. Sixense was called upon to provide instrumentation and monitoring to ensure the works would go safely by ensuring the stability of the structure.
Both projects required data acquisition and a management system. Sixense designed, installed, and managed these interfaces, allowing all data to be transmitted in real time to a web-based interface. Automated alarms and user-friendly data visualization allowed the engineers to assess the performance of the structures and take quick corrective actions when necessary.
Sixense involved in Dubai’s major heritage projects
Not only Abu Dhabi needed specific expertise. In Dubai, the new Museum of the Future also required special care. This gigantic structure and unique design needed foundation works for its pedestrian bridge crossing to the Emirates Tower Metro Station. This is where Sixense came in to provide the vibration and settlement monitoring of the ground while assessing the risks and effects on the existing assets. Thanks to the quick reactivity and mobilisation from Sixense on site, the operation was handled efficiently and in a total safety.
Al Shindagha Tunnel is the oldest and busiest tunnel is Dubai with no less than 55,000 motorists crossing it every day. As the only underwater road in Dubai Creek, it is of particular importance as it connects this part of the city with Al Ras, Deira and Al Shindagha neighbourhoods. Opened in 1975, this tunnel is an important asset which requires special control and maintenance.
It is for this purpose that Sixense was solicited to provide 3 different offers: Structural Health Monitoring, digitalisation, and engineering.
- Firstly, the Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) by carrying out the instrumentation and automatic monitoring activities, with real-time data for the Shindagha Tunnel. This system was set to assess, control, and ensure the stability of the tunnels during the surrounding construction activities, while some of the instrumentation aims at monitoring the deflection of the shoring wall during the execution phase of the adjacent enabling works. Shindagha tunnel I&M is meant to be permanent.
- Secondly, during the digitalisation, Sixense provided a drone inspection, as well as a 3D scanning of the tunnel with the CAMTREE acquisition device developed by Sixense to provide the highest level of assets digitalisation. Furthermore, we implemented an AI-assisted disorders detection solution called “Caméléon”.
- Finally, Sixense carried out a condition survey including a visual inspection as well as a photographic survey.
Sixense presence in the Sharjah Emirate
With two different projects for the Sharjah Art Foundation, Sixense contributed to the emirate heritage by providing engineering services. For both projects, the engineering services included on-site investigation and inspection coupled with its analysis as well as laboratory tests.
The first project, the Photography Museum, needed an investigation campaign for a structural assessment of the Building. Sixense had to provide information, on-site inspection, analysis of investigations and laboratory tests. All these steps led to essential recommendations regarding the repairs to be implemented.
More recently our teams took up the challenge to provide job site testing and recognition of structural elements for the old Sharjah Planetarium building. The main objective was to provide a survey of the building for a relocation of the old planetarium’s dome structure. Built in the 1970’s, this monument is part of the Middle East heritage. That is why it was necessary to avoid any risk of damaging the structure before its relocation. Indeed, this area is intended to be equipped with new infrastructure which will replace the dome.
