Mactan Cebu International Airport

Mactan Cebu International Airport

The second largest airport in the Philippines opens its doors with a timber roof design

The extension of the second largest airport in the Philippines to include a new 65,000 m² terminal for international flights to 23 destinations is complete and Austrian companies played a leading role in this. Passenger operations commenced on 1 July 2018 and are now among the most modern in South-East Asia.
 

Timber construction beats steel construction

Terminal 2 was originally designed for steel construction by planners in Hong Kong. However, the aim was to offer the arriving and departing guests something special, to welcome and say goodbye to visitors in a very special, resort-like atmosphere. The open architecture and building materials aim to reflect the ‘friendliness, openness and warmth of the culture of the Philippines’. For creative, ecological and traditional reasons, the choice fell on the most sustainable of all building materials, wood. Timber processing has been firmly anchored in the Philippines for centuries.
Unique in Asia- zoom
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Facts, figures & volumes

Client: GMR MEGAWIDE Cebu Airport Corporation (GMCAC) consortium, Philippines
Architect: IDA – Integrated Design Association Ltd., Hong Kong
Timber construction: Rubner Holzbau, Ober-Grafendorf, Austria
Terminal area: 65,000 m²
Glulam: approx. 4,500 m³ of spruce
Main girders: 800/1.2780 mm
Arch height: 15 m above the finished floor surface
Span: 30 m
143,500 RAPID® Fullthread Screws
43,800 partially threaded screws
Timber construction begin: early December 2016

Unique in Asia

The special aspect of the design: there is no other airport building in Asia with a superstructure and roof made entirely of timber. 4,500 m³ of glued laminated timber (glulam) was required for the interior and exterior of the architecturally characteristic, wavy, barrel-shaped roof support structure with a height of 15 m and a span of 30 m. The required 23 metre arch truss halves were prefabricated by Rubner Holzbau at their Ober-Grafendorf site. The components were shipped in three batches via the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and Antwerp to the Philippines and installed in Lapu-Lapu City on the island of Mactan under the direction of Rubner Holzbau in just three months.

Schmid Schrauben expertise as decisive factor
In modern structural timberwork, it is impossible to work without screws, meaning that 143,500 fully threaded and 43,800 partially threaded screws from Schmid Schrauben Hainfeld can be found at Mactan Airport. In addition to the high quality of the screws, the outstanding expertise of the Schmid Schrauben Hainfeld application engineers was the decisive factor.
Early on, the high salt content of the air and the high humidity caused Rubner much consternation. Exposed screw heads, in particular, are subject to a high corrosion risk. Together with Rubner, we at Schmid Schrauben were able to develop a solution which involved both a special screw coating, which we were able to produce quite easily and flexibly, and a special solution for the supports, says Johann Scheibenreiter of Schmid Schrauben.

High seismic and wind loads
The main demands on the superstructure result from the high seismic and wind loads. Storms can reach speeds of up to 200 km/h during the hurricane season. ‘The challenge in this design is the execution of the building joints to facilitate movement in case of an earthquake, as well as anchoring the main girders to the concrete structure, because the stiffening structure ends at a height of 6.5 m and could not be led down to the ground’, said Anton Wanas, project manager in charge at Rubner Holzbau in Ober-Grafendorf. ‘In addition to our technical expertise, we were thus able to present a convincing argument for implementing international projects at the highest legal, commercial and contractual level, and subject to the applicable regional conditions’, adds Roman Fritz, Managing Director of Rubner Holzbau. Incidentally, construction did not follow Asian standards, but instead complied with European standards, which are among the most stringent in the world. For Rubner Holzbau, this was the largest order for a glulam design in the company′s history.

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