Structural Retrofit to existing Pre-stressed Concrete Flat Slabs at Ratchada Towers

Known as “Crown” in Thai, Ratchada Towers were designed to be the major landmark in the metropolis of Bangkok, Thailand. Its construction started in the early 1990s and at that time the Ratchada Towers were targeted to be the tallest twin-tower building in the world. Due to financial crisis faced by the developer during the early stages of the construction, the construction of these iconic buildings were forced to come to a halt when only 40% completed.

The twin-towers were bought over by TCC Capitaland in the early 2000s to be re-developed into 50-storey modern office towers. With the change in both the building code of practice and the load considerations, these partially completed twin-towers needed to be strengthened to satisfy the new requirements. The project consultant, Meinhardt Thailand, proposed the use of Fibre-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) system for the strengthening to the post-tensioned flat slabs of the towers. After going through strong competition during the tender stage of the project, FYFE Asia’s FRP Composite Systems were chosen as the strengthening system due to the superiority of the system as a whole in terms of its strengthening performance, technical support and workmanship. The entire strengthening to the critical areas of the two towers were completed in less than the two-month schedule given by the project contractor.