Jobsite description

With 54 km long and 21 stations, The Monorail will cross the Greater Cairo area to link the New Administrative Capital to 6th of October city. This new rail network aims to facilitate the flow between the 2 urban megapoles and make traffic more fluid for Cairo’s residents.

The Monorail, which is scheduled to operate in 2023, will carry around 45,000 passengers per hour in each direction. With a top speed of almost 80 km/h, it will be possible to link the two cities in 60 minutes.

Cairo Monorail

CHRYSO expertise

The construction of the Monorail would require 700,000 m3 of concrete.

To meet the technical needs of this mega project, CHRYSO has been relying on its expertise and know-how in the construction chemicals industry, as well as in the fields of precast and ready-mix concrete. In addition to premium services and technical support provided to the project contractors and concrete suppliers, innovative solutions have been developed to help the project stakeholders overcoming operating challenges. ClearTest® has been one of the differentiating solutions provided to help charactarizing sand deliveries and avoiding quality issues related to the presence of clay.

Thanks to a wide range of Polycarboxylate molecules and products, CHRYSO has been able to meet the specific requirements of the project, in challenging environmental conditions (temperature varies from 5°C to 45°C) and unstable quality of concrete components.

PRODUCTS USED

• Superplasticisers : CHRYSO®Optima ; CHRYSO®Premia ; CHRYSO®Delta
• Set accelerator: CHRYSO®Xel
• Shrinking agent: CHRYSO®Serenis
• Demoulding agent: CHRYSO®Dem Ekla 12

Project technical challenges

The fluid concretes of piles and columns, as well as self-compacting concrete of columns, closures (part joining two beams together) and prestressed beams, have been requiring specific performance, including 2 to 3 hours of workability, low viscosity and excellent pumpability and placeability. All these requirements, as well as excellent robustness to variations of sand and aggregates qualities, have been met with the use of CHRYSO®Optima and CHRYSO®Delta superplasticizers.

The 8,000 prestressed beams have been precast using a sophisticated concrete mix design with high cement and silica fume content and a very low water-to-cement ratio. Tailor made CHRYSO®Premia superplasticizers and CHRYSO®Xel accelerators have allowed to obtain the very high early strengths required (> 10 MPa after 10 hours, > 30 MPa after 30 hours, without steam/heat curing), combined with 2 hours of workability retention, excellent pumpability and placability, in a context of large temperature variations (5°C in winter and 40°C in summer). Finally, excellent faire-faced concrete has been achieved by using CHRYSO®Dem Ekla 12, a safe and environmentally friendly demolding agent.

The closures, connecting beams to each other, have been manufactured by using a CHRYSO®Optima superplasticiser and CHRYSO®Serenis, a very powerful Shrinkage Reducing Admixture. CHRYSO’s solution has been designed to provide the concrete with long workability retention, low viscosity, excellent pumpability, as well as perfect dimensional and mechanical compatibility with the adjacent hardened beams.


Project participants

Client: National Tunnel Authority (NAT) of the Egyptian Ministry of Transport
Contractor: Orascom Construction and Arab Contractors


 

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