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32 Tube Products International April 2008
developmentsproducts &
Uponor has lent its expertise to the
spectacular Palm Jumeirah, off Dubai’s
coast. Products from Uponor UK,
Germany and Sweden have been
supplied for both the vast infrastructure
project and for the hotels, shops and
private properties being constructed.
Uponor Infrastructure UK has supplied a
substantial amount of potable and non-
potable polyethylene (PE 100) pipes
for The Palm, including 80km of HPPE
pipe in diameters between 160mm
and 1,200mm for the Atlantis hotel
and aqua-park. Uponor International in
Germany is supplying products from its
multi-layered composite pipe system
(MLCP) for tap water installation.
Black high performance PE 100 pipe
was selected for the infrastructure due
to the extremes of heat, construction
demands and welding requirements,
and its characteristics of flowability,
abrasion and corrosion resistance, long
service life and quality.
The first (and at the time, record-
breaking) project on the Palm Jumeirah
involved micro-tunnelling 12 shots of
500mm PE 100 SDR 11 19 metres
below the sea bed, each 900 metres in
length.
Six shots each side of the Palm’s
Crescent had to have centres with a
tolerance of 450mm and a 355mm SDR
11 PE 100 pipe inserted the whole
length of each shot. These 355mm
lines carry services for potable water,
gas, communications ducts and treated
sewerage effluent lines.
The world’s largest fish tank at Atlantis
holds 53 million litres of salt-water. Both
freshwater and salt-water piping was
required, and Uponor has supplied pipes
with diameters from 25mm to 1,200mm,
including over 15km of 355mm pipe
in SDR 11 and SDR 17 densities, plus
specially made electrofusion couplers
and joints.
The pipework and mechanical systems
structure for the Atlantis formed a
significant element of the construction
process.
One of the early challenges to the project
was directionally drilling 19 metres
beneath the seabed through compacted
sand and then pulling through 1,000mm
diameter Uponor pipe in 400m sections
for three seawater intakes.
Tim Perkins of Uponor commented,
“We’ve manufactured pipes to handle
daily water volumes for the equivalent of
a town the size of York; it’s been a huge
but highly successful project.”
Several of the hotel’s en-suite rooms
have views onto a massive aquarium
rising from reception through several
levels, with pipework also supplied by
Uponor.
The company is currently working with
the consortia planning infrastructure
packages for the second and third
islands, the Palm Deira and the Palm
Jebel Ali, including Dubai’s new
waterfront, now rising from the sea.
Uponor Housing Solutions is supplying
cooling systems for The Palm’s many
properties, including over 150,000
polyphenylsulfone (PPSU) fittings and
over 200,000 metres of MLCP pipes.
Uponor – UK head office
Pipes to meet the challenge at Dubai’s Palm
The Palm Jumeirah, described as one of the new manmade wonders of the world S S
Some of the larger diameter Uponor pipes during construction of the Atlantis Hotel S S
aquarium