Fire Damage Assessment on the Mall of Qatar l Qatar
Project summary
Images of the project
Post-fire investigation expertise and repair solutions
The iconic Mall of Qatar is located along Dukhan highway, near Rayyan stadium, in Doha. The complex comprises around 430,000m of retail area, with 2 basement floors and 3 floors above ground.
The mall was nearly completed when a fire occurred on the 2nd of April 2016.
The fire started near the central conical dome at the first mezzanine and propagated to the floors below, it lasted for a period of 5 to 7 hours.
Sixense was contracted to provide its post-fire investigation expertise and repair solutions. As often with extensive fire events, the first part of the investigation consisted of a Damage Mapping.
Test Campaigns and Repairs were then recommended depending on the damage level. They aimed at assessing the state of the concrete, the extend that should be removed, and the prestressing efficiency.
The following tests were carried out:
- Compressive Strength on Concrete Cores, to assess the remaining strength of the concrete
- Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity Tests, to quantify the concrete quality
- Tensile Tests on steel reinforcement, to assess their status
- Petrographic Examination Tests, to estimate the temperature at which the slabs and walls were exposed
- Prestressing Visual Tests, to assess the status of the ducts, the grout
- Tendons Crossbow® Tests, to assess the residual prestressing in non-exposed tendons
Sixense involvement on this project has been at various stages of the diagnosis and repair process, beyond the original intervention on-site.
Besides the investigation of post-fire elements, additional windows were also opened to extensively check the grouting of the PT ducts, and an additional Crossbow® campaign was carried out to assess the actual tension in the cables.
Further tests were later performed to assess thoroughly the quality of the workmanship of the applied repair solutions implemented. One year after the fire broke out, the Mall of Qatar was inaugurated by His Highness Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani.
