Vienna West station: High-volume wire sawing

The wire saws and drill bits from EDT EURODIMA operate continuously at the construction site in Vienna!

The hall of the listed railway station West in Vienna is refurbished and extended by two new multi-story buildings at both sides. A subterranean level will be added underneath the whole new complex of building, including the existing station hall. With the scheduled completion in autumn 2011, Austrias first “BahnhofCity” opens, providing optimal traffic links, shopping center, offices and a hotel. All information of the project is available online.

To reach that ambitious goal, the former railway station West was closed down in September 2008 in order to push the comprehensive works. EDT EURODIMA is constantly on site due to continuous customer support for the concrete specialist consortium Dimas/GWA (DIMAS Betonbohr- u. -sägedienst Ges.m.b.H. and GWA Michalko GmbH, two of the biggest Austrian concrete dilling and cutting companies). As the station hall is listed, the contractors had to adhere to the special building regulations of the Bundesdenkmalamt (state office for historical monuments).

Another particularity of the construction site is the settlement of the services in m³ cubatures of concrete demolition. Until end of July, the following concrete quantities were removed by the consortium DIMAS/GWA:

•    approx. 1,100 m³ concrete by wire sawing
•    approx. 1,400 m core drilling (drillings for wire sawing preparation not counted)

For the remaining tasks, a further 200 m³ wire sawing concrete demolition and diverse drillings are reckoned with. The main demolition is done within a 4 months period. As the time slots were very tight, the DIMAS and GWA workers were often working night and weekend shifts.

The most intensive task is the wire sawing work. They are accomplished with the powerful EDT EURODIMA wire sawing machines.

The oversized concrete blocks that have to be removed from the existing buidling, can be cut with wire saws as the most efficient method. The advantage is the independence of even concrete parts, and the machines do not have to be reset and refitted as often as with wall sawing. With the wire saw, all cuts – be it horizontal, vertical, floor, ceiling, mitre, diagonal, or flush cuts – can be done with lowest mounting and operating work, using of the appropriate guidance systems.

The electro-pneumatic drive causes the low total weight and connected loads, highest electric efficiency, low-noise and smooth operation as well as low tool wear. The wire saw power unit provides highest operational safety for the operating personnel due to its compactness and the total safety cover of the wire within the unit. To further diminish the risk of accident, the wire is guided through hollow axles: loose lashing of the wires when breaking off is rendered impossible.

In this project, four EDT EURODIMA wire saws WB12S with drive units WB12SMS and 500 m diamond wire, type DS40FBLUE, were used. The wire quality was tested, adapted and customised constantly to the concrete (which is known to be very difficult to cut in Vienna) by the EDT EURODIMA customer advisor. The high-quality diamond wire is squirted with very flexible rubber composites; this combination enables a comfortable cutting process.

The drill bits that DIMAS used are tipped with the new DURAMANT^® segments, fixed with the SPACE WELDING technique. The innovative DURAMANT^® segments were developed in the EDT EURODIMA technology center in Wals/Salzburg, Austria. It combines a sophisticated bonding with high-class diamonds and an expedient segment form; with drill spikes, sharpening is not necessary anymore. So, the user obtains superior tool life and a much faster drill progress.

The newly applied technology that originates from the automotive industry, SPACE WELDING, is used for the production of concrete drilling tools for the first time ever. It does neither change nor impact the structures of the materials, such as conventional joining processes do. Up to date, approx. 180 drill bits of type DUK50 were used in the Viennese project.

The customer is very satisfied with the well-engineered EDT EURODIMA wire saws: The cuts were done efficiently, also during the nightshifts. And, moreover, the good drilling progress with the fast-cutting drill bits were critical to the adherence of the tight time limits.