Deira Waterfront Development Plot-04 Bus Terminus Palm Deira Station & Tunnel Project

The Deira Waterfront project is part of the Deira Enrichment Project (DEP), a plan to develop Deira and expand its footprint towards the sea. The DEP Masterplan seeks to retain Deira’s traditions and cultures and incorporate them in the revitalization of the waterfront area, known as the Deira Waterfront. The Waterfront area is located in the northern portion of the Deira District across the street from the old souks along the creek. 

Plot-04 is the location of the new proposed Bus Terminal, which will include a Hotel and Office Tower and sit above the existing Palm Deira Metro Station on the Dubai Metro Green Line. The bus terminal is a G+8 structure and will be the new transportation hub for Deira. The bus terminus building comprises two and eight stories plus a roof. 

The primary constraint on the construction works was the presence of the Dubai Metro Palm Deira Station and bored tunnel running directly through this site and in close proximity. The purpose of the instrumentation was to monitor the response of the Palm Deira Station and tunnel to the loads and surcharges imposed by the construction activities, to ensure that they are within design predictions, and to safeguard against damage to the existing structures by vibrations or overloading caused by construction activities. This included monitoring vibration, deformation, distortion, movement, tilt, strain, gap monitoring, crack monitoring, environmental changes, etc.  

Encardio-rite’s sister concern, Encardio-rite Geosystems LLC in UAE, was awarded an I&M sub-contract for the turnkey monitoring solutions that included: 

Pre-construction building condition survey of all of the affected railway assets

Supply, installation, and monitoring of geotechnical instruments inside the tunnel to monitor the response of the loads and surcharges imposed by the construction activities; for shoring works

• Establishment, measurements, and maintenance of the survey network
• Setting up a convergence monitoring system inside the tunnel using robotic total stations & control boxes
• Manual and automatic monitoring
• Weekly & monthly reporting with evaluation & Interpretation

Geotechnical instruments used for monitoring and surveying during construction activity included tilt beam sensors, joint meters, strain gages, crack meters, tr-axial accelerometers (vibration monitoring), and prism targets. Dataloggers were used to automatically collect and transmit data from geotechnical sensors, and robotic total stations were used to automatically collect and transmit data from prism targets. 

The real-time data from the sensors was continuously accessible to the consultant/contractor at their desk during work. This helped the contractor perform their construction activities safely, without any delays or failure.