Railway roof made with Scott Bader’s Crestabond adhesive
May 20, 2015 - United Kingdom
The lightweight composite concourse roof for Haramain high-speed railway station at Saudi Arabia has been made with Crestabond primer-less structural adhesive, by global chemical company, Scot Bader.
The stylish, umbrella shaped concourse roof uses a lightweight advanced composite solution to meet both the architectural design and natural light access requirements, alongside demanding build specifications.
A key factor in materials selection for the complex modular station building design was the need for the interconnecting roof panels to be structurally lightweight and relatively easy to install onsite during construction. This was achieved by using a foam cored sandwich FRP laminate. The composite panels is fire resistant and able to cope long-term with prolonged exposure to strong UV sunlight and the extreme temperature cycling that is typical in the Middle East.
To help minimise the overall installed roof weight, Crestabond M1-30 structural adhesive was specified wherever possible in preference to using mechanical fixings. The galvanised steel Rock Wool pins, metal C-brackets and stainless steel chequered sheets used in the construction were bonded to the FRP roof panels using Crestabond M1-30. A total of 41 individual FRP roof sub-panels fit together to make up each of the 27 m2 interlinked square shaped curved modules of the station’s concourse roof’s eye catching umbrella design, according to a company statement.
The lightweight FRP composite panels specified for the Madinah station roof were fabricated by Dubai based Premier Composite Technologies (PCT). The FRP sandwich laminate panels were moulded using glass fibre reinforcements, a fire retardant epoxy resin and a closed cell foam core.
Each moulded FRP roof panel was then finished with coloured glass mosaic tiles on the external surface. PCT manufactured a total of 1,312 lightweight composite sandwich panels to cover the massive 26,400 m2 surface area of the new Madinah station concourse roof.
To complete the overall ambience and lighting effect created by the architectural design, the composite roof has a suspended inner ceiling made of green anodized aluminium segments with a special embossed perforated pattern and fixed anti-glare lamellas to help achieve high reflectivity. (GK)