Concrete for JBR and Bluewaters podiums and beachfront works

The order of a podium job

A typical sequence here: break out and replace a podium section, pour blinding over prepared ground, cast new footings or ground beams, then the slab, then screed and finishes. Each stage is a separate delivery, often small. A 120 m2 podium bay at 200 mm is 24 m3, two trucks. Ordering two trucks for a narrow window is fine, as long as the pump is booked in the same call.

Reclaimed ground and sea air

Both JBR beachfront and Bluewaters are on reclaimed land. Groundwater is shallow and saline, with chlorides and sulphates. Anything in contact with the ground uses the substructure mix your consultant has specified for that exposure, usually GGBS-based with a low water/cement ratio and a stated cover. Elements exposed to sea spray above ground may carry their own exposure class too; read the drawings before calling the order in.

Pump position, truck path and timing

Access is from Sheikh Zayed Road and along Al Mamsha Street, where pedestrians and outdoor seating take up most of the frontage. Bluewaters has its own bridge approach. The community and the building operator decide where a pump may stand, when trucks may enter and whether the walk must be screened. Check with them before you fix a date.

Our Al Quoz plant is about 11 km away in a straight line. Traffic on Sheikh Zayed Road lengthens the journey at peak hours, so we set the retarder dose and slump target for the actual hour of discharge. In summer, many projects specify a maximum placing temperature, which points to early-morning pours that also suit the beachfront's quieter hours.

Our boom pumps run from 43 m to 57 m. On a podium job that reach is useful less for height than for standing the pump well back from the public area.

Every load for JBR and Bluewaters is batched at Al Quoz, on the same ready-mix concrete Dubai dispatch as the rest of the city.