Project Zalmhaven-Tower Rotterdam, Niederlande
The Zalmhaven Tower is the new exclamation mark on the Rotterdam skyline. It is part of the building complex "De Zalmhaven" directly on the banks of the Maas. At 215 metres high, the tower is the tallest residential high-rise in the Benelux countries and the tallest prefabricated building in the world.
We have been involved in the planning of the construction hoists in lift shafts that grow along since the development phase of the Zalmhaven Tower. Our solution: The complex control of the tower's construction lifts was handled by two Weber WE408s.
Challenge mastered:
Construction hoists in lift shafts that grow along
The erection of high-rise buildings using conventional facade construction hoists is disadvantageous in many respects. On the one side there are the high costs incurred by such a project, and on the other the limitations in their use. And the post-hoc closure of facade areas necessitated by the attachment of hoists on the outside also means additional outlays in terms of costs and time.
Mitsubishi Elevator Europe BV, our project partner, followed a new approach in the construction of the Zalmhaven Tower. So far integrated in the building process which was not seen many times before.
The hoist grows along with the building
The innovative construction hoist project could be tackled upon the completion of the building's first 10 floors including the basis for 4 lift shafts. Two of these shafts formed the basis for installing the construction lifts that grow along. Both shafts were each equipped with a prefabricated, mobile machine room held in place in them by a hydraulic locking system. This was followed by the completion of the lift installations in the shaft areas below, serving four floors at first. Besides the locking system's control, the two-storey machine rooms also accommodated the elevator control, elevator drive and the carrier and travelling cables for the entire ultimate lift height. Every time the construction had progressed by another four floors, the machine rooms were alternately raised and four additional automatic shaft doors installed. This way one lift was always available for use even while further floors were added. This modern, forward-thinking construction creates the opportunity that the builders and all other workers on the jobsite could use a “normal” lift for the transport on the jobsite. With travels more then 150 meters it is mandatory to have reasonable fast vertical transport in the building if the aim is to build one floor every week. With this invention we could contribute very much to the job-site logistics.
Technical data of the hoist facilities:
| Basic data: | Lift height: 168 m Floors: 56 Travelling speed: 2.0 m/s Carrying capacity: 1,275 kg |
| Elevator control: | Manufacturer: Weber Lifttechnik GmbH Control type: WE408 (group 2) |
| Frequency converter: | Manufacturer: Ziehl Abegg 4CS Type: ZA 4CS062 |
| Elevator drive: | Manufacturer: ZIEHL-ABEGG SE Type: ZA SM 225.60B |
| Automatic elevator car/shaft doors: | Manufacturer: Mitsubishi |
| Machine room fixing control: | Manufacturer: Weber Lifttechnik GmbH |
Maximum safety for the construction phase
Defying the adverse givens on the construction site required a number of technical challenges to be overcome. One focus area for ensuring fault-free operation was a safe signal transmission to the lift cars by way of the coiled (!) travelling cable (207 m long). Particular attention was paid to the creation of a modular structure for the stop expansions in consideration of safe data transmission, pluggability and protection from moisture.
Once the Zalmhaven Tower had been largely completed, the construction hoists had served their purpose. The new transport tasks are from then on being fulfilled by four high-speed lifts (6 m/s) supplied by Mitsubishi Elevator Europe BV. The fast runners took over the rails of the two construction hoists along with their Mitsubishi shaft doors, after some reprocessing beforehand.
Résumé
Interesting projects of this kind are a welcome challenge for Weber Lifttechnik that also boost the team spirit and team cohesion. That our service department was never called in from the delivery of the control units through to the tower's completion proves that we did everything right. Extensive preliminary work such as the concept contrived in cooperation with Mitsubishi Elevator Europe BV and the construction hoists' technical realization and high execution quality paid off.
We thank Mitsubishi Elevator Europe BV for the trust they placed in us and would be delighted to also be able to support them with our know-how in future projects.
