The first steel structural elements, which will serve as the roof’s structure and “grate” for the pier building’s aluminum and glass facade, were erected at the construction site of the western pier at Gdańsk Airport. DORACO is mounting the girders, each of them comprising of five sections, 36 meters long and weighing 12 tons. So far, four sections have been erected, and ultimately, there will be 20. The erection process will last around a month. The girders will be linked with each other and stiffened with additional steel beams. Together, they will form a structure that will be 180 meters long and 44 meters wide. Its total weight will be 600 tons. The structure will be mounted on “tree-shaped” steel columns with two and four supporting “branches.”
“After mounting the girders, we will erect parts of the building’s steel structure and connect them by way of a labor intensive welding process. This phase of the work is carried out under the strict control of qualified staff in charge of supervising the welding process. The welded elements are, afterward, checked utilizing X-rays. All this to ensure high quality and the safety of the structure,” says Łukasz Rudnicki, a construction manager at DORACO.
Structures consisting of girders are used at construction sites to span large-area facilities, e.g., stadiums or sport and entertainment halls, and in the road sector to construct bridges and overpasses.
So far, 98% of the reinforced concrete structural works have been completed at the pier’s construction site at Gdańsk Airport. Works on the construction of external staircases for passenger travel routes continue. Over the upcoming two months, it is planned to finish the erection of the steel structure and construction of the staircases and the start of the aluminum and glass facade cladding and works on roof coverage.