Pilosio, a leading European player in the production of scaffolding systems for the construction industry, said it has won a multi-million-dollar contract in Saudi Arabia to support the mammoth expansion project of Prophet's Mosque in Madinah.

Pilosio said its shoring and formwork produced in the Italian province of Udine will be employed in the biggest ever project for the company in terms of size and value.

"This contract covers just the first phase of Madinah Haram expansion, and we will continue to play a significant role until at least 2020," stated Pilosio CEO Dario Roustayan.

As part of Phase One that will conclude at the end of this year, the Italian company will supply its flagship shoring structures made with the MP multidirectional system and type P300 formwork to execute works covering 20,000 sq m of floor area with a 15.08-m foundation level of the mega structure, whose total floor area measures about 650,000 sq m.

Pilosio’s share of work on the entire project covers a total surface area of 400,000 sq m, said Roustayan.

The expansion work on the two-million-sq-m mosque, which can accommodate 1.2 million pilgrims, includes the development of related infrastructure, transport networks and buildings surrounding the structure known as Al Ruwaq.

Pilosio said numerous feasibility studies were conducted to arrive at the best solution in addition to training courses at various levels as well as construction of on-site mock-ups that demonstrated the pre-assembly of the shoring structures.

An MP multidirectional system was decided upon as the shoring equipment for casting the first and second floors due to its greater flexibility when being installed in areas with restrictions and with foundations at different levels, it added.

The technical solution adopted by Pilosio foresees the use of the MP multidirectional system by opting for heavy-duty MP towers, said Roustayan.

"The new MP HD heavy-duty tower is achieved by coupling and connecting the 16 uprights for each column of the tower to each other with standard elements, in order to reach the minimum capacity rate required (in this particular case, reaching the considerable capacity of 600 kN per column)," he explained.

The final towers obtained in this way are then placed in correspondence with the loads, thereby relieving the slab of any stress, he added.

The MP towers can either be built up in-situ or in a specified area (of the site), from where they can be moved and placed in their final positions by on-site cranes.

Once the casting has been done, the towers can be dismantled in-situ or relocated individually or in groups in adjacent areas. The removal of the towers takes place with a system of wheels to fix to the base of the four columns of the tower enabling fast transferal, said the Italian firm.

To contain the casting of the 3-m-high drop beams present in the two floors, standard P300 formwork has been opted for, supported directly on the MP towers, it added.-TradeArabia News Service