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3D House printing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How 3d printing is transforming the construction industry.

A Chinese construction company has found a way to make houses pop up at the press of a button – 3D printed homes that could be assembled in under 3 hours. The two-storey show villa was built from pre-constructed components printed in a factory and later lifted into place using a crane, all under 3 hours, signalling a change for the global construction sector.

The new technology used by the Zhuoda Group, based in Xi’an, central China, is being kept carefully under wraps. While most construction companies using 3D printing technology use a cement base, the group is using an unnamed material for its villas. The printed homes cost just 3,000 Yuan (£300) per square metre to build. Compared to an average price of 36,000 Yuan (£3,600) per square metre retail price of apartments in China today, the profit margins are impressive.

They have already applied for more than 20 patents for their unique homes but the villas are not yet available on a mass scale. However, consumers are soon expected to be able to buy made-to-order villas with the rise of 3D printing technology among construction companies.

Another company based in Shanghai built the world’s tallest 3D printed building in January. The villa built by Winsun is five storeys high and cost 1 million Yuan (£100,000) to construct. The construction firm used four huge 3D printers, which are 21 feet tall and as wide as a basketball court.

The houses are built wall by wall from an ‘ink’ made up of a mixture of cement and environmentally friendly construction waste and claims to make walls that are even stronger than concrete. The company is now working in Dubai to build the world’s first fully 3D-printed office.

This story is by constructionglobal.com

Edge Careers are excited to announce that our Freelance Recruitment Consultant, Katie Collett, is expecting her first child in February!

Katie Pregnant

We would like to congratulate Katie and her partner on this exciting news and all the team at Edge Careers wish her a happy and healthy pregnancy.

 

 

Edge Careers are Construction and Engineering Recruitment Experts who pride ourselves on offering the highest level of service in the industry to all of our candidates and clients.

To become an Edge Careers candidate, please click here to register your details. If you are a client looking to fill a vacancy, please click here, or alternatively contact one of our consultants to discuss your requirements in more detail via our Contact Us page.

Follow Edge Careers on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook for all our latest news, exclusive competitions and events.

 

www.edgecareers.co.uk

Ferrari-world-abu-dhabi

Ferrari World Abu Dhabi Facts:

  • The 86,000 m2, enclosed area of Ferrari World, can fit 7 football fields in ‘head to toe’.
  • The total roof area of 200,000 m2 uses enough aluminum to cover 16,750 Ferrari’s, or if you laid the roof flat you could place 20,100 Ferrari’s side by side and end to end.
  • If Ferrari World was turned upright, it would be the tallest man made structure in the world at over 300 floors!
  • The Ferrari logo on the roof, the largest ever created, measures an incredible 65m in length and covers an area of 3,000 m2 which could fit at least 7 basketball courts.
  • The volume of concrete in Hoover Dam could fit inside Ferrari World.
  • 100,000 m3 of concrete was used to pour the slabs of Ferrari World, which is 10,000 m3 more than what was used for Wembley Stadium in London.
  • Ferrari World has the largest space frame structure ever built with a total of approximately 172,000 members and 43,100 nodes.
  • Ferrari World needed 12,370 tons of steel to create its structure; the Eiffel Tower only needed 7,000 tons.
  • The gross footprint area of the plaza level is equivalent to approximately 15 American Football fields.
  • The Empire State Building could be rebuilt in the same time it took to clad the 200,000 m2 of roof for Ferrari World Abu Dhabi; approximately 14 months.
  • Formula Rossa, the world’s fastest roller coaster, has the same G force one would feel driving in an F1 car and braking at maximum speed.
  • Ferrari World includes 1,200 dining seats – enough to feed the entire park at full capacity in 3 hours.
  • Ferrari World Abu Dhabi is the world’s only venue to house Four Michelin-star experienced Italian chefs under one roof.
  • A football field needs 8,400 m2 of grass coverage; to cover the area around the roller coasters at Ferrari World, 4.5 times that amount was used – approximately 39,000 m2 of ground cover.

Congratulations to Ali Inwood of Aziza UK for winning September’s prize in the Edge Careers Fantasy Football League! We hope you enjoy the sound of victory through your new headphones.

Ali’s team, Lord Of The Ings, scored a massive 185 points, the most out of the 159 participants in the competition’s second month.

Who will win October’s prize?

Ali Inwood - September Prize Winner

 

King Abdullah Economic City

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saudi leads region with $1 trillion construction projects

Saudi Arabia has emerged as the Middle East’s largest construction market, with the value of projects planned and under way estimated to be more than SR3.75 trillion ($1 trillion), according to latest figures.

This encompasses several sectors, including transport, infrastructure, utilities, education and healthcare, reflecting the prioritisation of upgrades to local roads, rail, port and airports, along with other facilities in order to attract private investment.

To complement the growth and development across Saudi Arabia, the government has made its largest allocation for the 2015 budget toward the transport and infrastructure sector of SR630 billion ($168 billion).

One of the key projects in focus in Saudi Arabia is the rail and road programme that includes Riyadh Metro, Dammam Rail, Haramain Rail, Makkah Railway, and Saudi-Bahrain Causeway. Airport construction and upgrades, including work on Riyadh’s King Khaled International Airport and Jeddah’s King Abdul Aziz International Airport as well as construction of new airports in Madinah and Abha Governorates, is another vital segment.

Lastly, the upgrading of existing roads and building of new ones across Saudi Arabia, along with infrastructure projects in the industrial cities of Jubail, Yanbu and Ras Al Khair is also the part of the ongoing developments.

This story is by TradeArabia News Service

Forth Road Bridge

  • The Forth Road Bridge is a long-span suspension bridge which was opened on September 4, 1964, by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
  • Construction began in 1958 and the project cost £19.5 million.
  • Over 24 million vehicles cross the bridge each year.
  • Nearly 40,000 tonnes of steel and 125,000 cubic metres of concrete went into its construction.
  • When it opened, it was the first bridge of its kind in the UK, the longest outside the USA and the fourth longest in the world. It features a dual two-lane carriageway and cycletracks/footpaths.
  • The full length of the bridge is 2.5 km, which includes a main span of 1,006m between the two main towers, side spans of 408m each and north and south viaducts of 252m and 438m respectively.
  • 49,280 km (30,000 miles or 6,350 tonnes) of wire make up the two main cables from which the suspended deck hangs. Each cable is 590mm in diameter and made of 11,618 high-tensile wires, each 4.98mm-thick.
  • These main cables each take 13,800 tonnes of the total load and are anchored into the rock on both sides of the Forth. The anchorages are made of concrete cast in tunnels between 56 and 79m in length of tapering section cut into the rock at an inclination of 30° to the horizontal. The concrete is strengthened by steel post-tensioning strands grouted into conduits.
  • The bridge’s two main towers stand over 150m above the mean water level, support the majority of the bridge’s weight, and are of welded cellular high-tensile steel construction, featuring steel up to 25mm thick. The towers were strengthened in the late 1990s to support the ever-increasing weights of heavy goods vehicles crossing the bridge.
  • The north tower stands on the Mackintosh Rock while the south tower features caissons founded on sandstone some 32m below high water. Defences around both piers were added in the late 1990s to withstand potential collisions from shipping.
  • The side towers are located where the approach viaducts meet the suspended span. These substantial reinforced concrete structures help to support the weight of the main cable as well as both approach viaducts.
  • The suspended span decks hang from the bridge’s two main cables by 768 steel hanger ropes of 48mm (main span) and 57mm (side span) in diameter that are between 2.4 and 90 m long. These hanger ropes were all replaced between 1998 and 2000 and each set of four takes loads of 176 and 224 tonnes.
  • The bridge’s suspended deck is 36m wide but no more than 38mm thick. It consists of a steel stiffening truss with three longitudinal air gaps at roadway level to improve aerodynamic stability.
  • As the roadway expands and contracts according to varying temperature, wind and weight of traffic, expansion joints are embedded in the roadway under the two main towers.

Heidi Cake

Edge Careers run a monthly consultant leaderboard, with the top billing recruitment consultant winning a prize!

The winner of the September prize is Heidi Genner, who is our Residential Division Manager.

Cake

Usually the winning consultant has a big bottle of champagne, but as Heidi is not a drinker, she instead requested cake!

Well done Heidi, enjoy your well deserved cake.

Who will win next month?

Tom Eaves

Please join us in welcoming Tom Eaves to Edge Careers.

As our newest team member, Tom has joined our flourishing Freelance Division as a Recruitment Consultant. Having lived for a number of years in Australia, working in sales and customer facing roles, Tom brings a wealth of experience and a fresh approach to construction recruitment and is a great addition to the Freelance Division. We are very excited to welcome Tom to the Edge Careers team and wish him the best in his new role.

Edge Careers are Construction and Engineering Recruitment experts.

The majority of our consultants have over 10 years’ continued service within the company, some of which are former construction industry professionals who truly know the industry inside out. We have long standing client relationships spanning over 25 years and a multitude of clients from privately owned regional businesses to large multinational Plc’s, located both within the UK and internationally.

As Construction and Engineering Recruitment Experts, we have a wide database of multi-disciplined candidates, from Site Labourers to Board Directors, and no matter which division you speak to, you will have a Key Account Manager providing you with one point of contact throughout the recruitment process. Whether you are a client or candidate, we’ll make things as simple as possible for both parties. As registered members of the REC, we ensure we always operate in a professional, legal and moral manner.

Eiffel Tower

It’s 126 years since the famous Iron Lady was inaugurated in time for the 1889 World Fair in Paris.

It is now one of  the most visited monuments in the world and around seven million people climb its stairs or take the lift to one of its three levels each year.

But it’s worth remembering that it was not always this popular. When construction began in July 1887, a group of around 300 artists, sculptors and architects sent a petition to the commissioner of the Paris exhibition demanding that he halt construction of the “ridiculous tower”.

Here are 12 facts about the Eiffel Tower:

1. Two years, two months and five days  That’s how long it took to build the Eiffel Tower, with construction beginning in 1887.

2. 7,799,401.31 – That’s what it cost in French gold Francs to build the monument.

3. 324 metres  That’s the height of the Eiffel Tower, including the antenna at the top. That works out at 1,063 feet. Without the antenna it is 300 metres tall (984 feet).

4. Six inches – That’s how much the tower grows in the sun. Yes the Eiffel Tower grows when it gets hot and shrinks in the cold. Although this is fairly hard to see with the naked eye.

5. 10,000 tonnes That’s how much the Iron Lady weighs.

6. 20 years – That’s how long the Eiffel Tower was originally designed to last. It was built by Gustave Eiffel to commemorate the French Revolution and show off France’s industrial might. The removal men were meant to pull it down after 20 years, but Eiffel appears to have persuaded them to have a change of heart. The fact that the tower could be used as a wireless telegraph transmitter, made it fairly useful and saved it from the wrecking ball.

7. 103,000 kilometres – That’s the distance one lift travels each year, according the site livescience.com, which, to put into perspective is two and a half times the circumference of the earth. There are steps up to the top – 1,710 of them – but visitors can only walk up to the first floor.

8. 18 – That’s the number of times the iron lady has been repainted over the years. It takes a mammoth 60 tonnes of paint to give it a first coat. 

9.  41 years – That’s how long the Eiffel Tower was the world’s tallest building for, before the Chrysler Building in New York came along and stole its mantle.

10. 250 million – That’s the number of people who have paid a visit to the Eiffel Tower over the years. 

11. 1944 – The year when the Eiffel Tower could have been pulled down. Hitler ordered the German military governor of France to tear it down but he refused.

12. Six to seven metres – This is the amount the Eiffel Tower sways in the wind.

Writing a good CV

The difference between writing a good CV and an average CV can be the difference from you landing your dream job or not. The first impression any potential employer will make of you will come from the CV that has been submitted to them.

Edge Careers takes a look at a few points that will help you to write a good CV.

Contact details

  • Be sure to include as many contact details as possible so that a recruiter or employer can easily reach you
  • Try to make your email address professional, most of us set up an email address as teenagers and set as somthing funny, if it is possible it would be advisorable to have an email address set as somthing like firstname.lastname@hotmail.com

Previous employment

  • Write in reverse chronological order, including starting and leaving dates for each position.
  • Include concise details of what the job entailed, your responsibilities and what you achieved in the role.
  • If there are any time gaps between employment explain what you were doing in that time, for example travelling, at college, carrying out charity fund raising work.

Qualifications

  • There is no need to list all of your Standard Grade/National 5/GCSE subjects, simply write something like, 10 GCSEs A-C including Mathematics and English.
  • A-Level and degree qualifications can be listed, the grades do not have to be included.
  • List only the academic centres where a qualification was earned in reverse chronological order with dates.

Hobbies and interests

  • If you do choose to include this section, it can be used to give an insight into your personality.
  • Consider carefully what you are putting down and its implications. Team events indicate that you are a team player, other activities such as Scouting, CCF, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme show commitment and the fact you are not adverse to a challenge.
  • Be specific, and show what you learnt or gained from the activity (such as perseverance, teamwork, communication skills), and if you were on the society or helped organise anything emphasise this.
  • Keep this section very brief, do not list all of your interests and hobbies.