SITUATION:
Hangzhou International Expo Center is situated on the banks of the Qiantang River in China. The Hangzhou International Expo Center covers 19.7 hectares, and has a gross floor area of 850,000 sqm (9.15 million ft2). The Hangzhou International Expo Center is the biggest, most influential, most complex and most culturally appealing among the many excellent conferences and exhibitions.
It contains more than 7,500 stores with an international standard and 28 comprehensive conference halls. The total earth excavation is 2.5 million m3. 145,000 tons of steel and 600,000m2 of concrete have been placed.
CHALLENGES:
- A total construction area of 300,000 m2 is required
- Stone Installation area reaches 8,000 m2
- Tight working schedules (5 months)
- High quality requirements (The building functioned as Main venue of 2016 G20 Summit)
SOLUTION:
About 140,000 square meters of 800mm x 800mm nature stone tiles needed to be installed on the floors of the main hall. Also, nearly 20,000 square meters of 600mm x 600mm porcelain tiles were required on some area of the hall wall.
ARDEX China provided a complete set of technical solutions with quality system products. First, the concrete was primed with ARDEX P20 Powder Primer for both floor and wall installation. Its excellent adhesion would help improving the bonding strength between cement sand and substrates. It also saves time and labor since no waiting time is required.
Second, ARDEX X 26 and X28 were applied to floor and wall tile installation respectively. Excellent tensile adhesion strength and slip resistance of ARDEX X 26 completely prevented the project floor from de-bonding. It was ideal for fixing heavy weight and low water adsorbent tiles on the floor. On the other side, Using ARDEX X 28 as wall tile adhesive would guarantee the quality of the project. ARDEX X 28 would avoid the tile adhesive penetrating into natural stone and then helped minimizing the discoloration. The safety of wall tiles was another big concern. ARDEX X 28 had high performance on rapid hardening with high early bonding strength which would reduce the problem of deformation of tiles caused by voids. Its high flexibility would maintain a high tensile strength when substrates or tiles deform.
In the end, as a fine joint grout, ARDEX FG 4 would provide excellent compressive strength and low shrinkage for tiles. It means ARDEX FG 4 would help minimizing cracking and efflorescence.
