Dubai Has Built the World’s Biggest Observation Wheel

[Music] when the london eye opened in 2000 it was intended to be a temporary attraction but it proved so popular that it became a permanent fixture on the skyline making towering observation wheels the must-have landmark of the new millennium since then more than 18 giant observation wheels have been built around the world but despite the title of world's tallest changing hands three times the actual height of the tallest wheel has only risen from 135 meters in 2000 to 169 meters in 2014 when las vegas completed the high roller echoing the extreme height increase that saw it claim the title of the world's tallest building dubai's latest record-breaking attraction takes engineering to the limits with an observation wheel that's nearly double the size of the london eye [Music] located just off the coast of dubai marina on the man-made blue waters island iron dubai or the eye of dubai is now officially the world's tallest and largest observation wheel standing over 250 meters tall and with a capacity of 1750 passengers at any one time 82 meters taller than its predecessor on dubai represents the single greatest increase in height for this type of structure something that could only have been achieved in a place like dubai so in terms of structural challenges i don't think you can pair the own dubai with any other wheels and i probably would say that just because it is by far the largest and without getting too technical a lot of the stress relationships are a squared factor so it's not just a linear proportion so it gets twice as big the stresses get twice as big it's actually a squared relationship and we were pushing the bounds of engineering on this wheel probably more than any other wheel has has done before originally set to stand 210 meters tall when it was first proposed back in 2013 the wheel was redesigned and scaled up to a size that would require 33 percent more steel than was used in the eiffel tower now an artificial island which is essentially compacted sand might not seem like the best place to build something of this magnitude but the reclaimed land itself doesn't actually bear much of the wheel's weight at all drilled to a depth of 35 meters iron dubai's foundation piles extend 5 meters into solid bedrock completely bypassing the reclaimed land blue waters island only provides lateral support for the structure with a solid base to build on the hard work really began with the four legs each 126 meters in length that's just nine meters shorter than the london eyes overall height the biggest challenge for engineers didn't actually come from the leg's size but from keeping them standing at a precise angle while the hub and spindle were fitted they tie everything together and make the structure self-supporting there was approximately four weeks 24 7 welding just to get the legs joined to the spindle we had the world's third largest fixed crane capable of lifting 3000 tons we then bought in the largest mobile crane also capable of lifting 3 000 tons the reason we needed 6 000 tons of lifting capacity it's all about the reach so you've got to have the ability to lift 1800 tons at a significant distance because you've got the legs in the way and things like that so that lifting capacity drops quite quite significantly which is why we needed both cranes um to achieve that lift observation wheels might look lightweight and simple once they're built but getting them to a place where they are self-supporting and won't buckle under their own weight is an extreme structural challenge and the temporary support structure that makes it happen is like building a whole second wheel within the rim itself once you've got a wheel that's fully built and it's a circle like a bike wheel it's very strong but the stage before that is you're trying to actually create that circle that's the challenge so we started building it up in i refer to it as almost the dairylee cheese boxes you might be familiar with where you've got the eight eight eight triangles that go to make up the circle and realistically that's exactly what how we constructed this wheel and to do that we had what we refer to as a temporary rigid spoke so that was made out of structural steel rather than cables now the rim itself because they were very slender what we actually had to do is construct and convert the rim into a bridge only when we created a bridge structure could it then span between the two temporary spokes that we'd installed we were then able um to jack the first segment 100 meters into the air that then allowed us to then lift in the second segment we then put in another rigid spoke and we would then jack that around now that sounds like a very quick exercise reality that process took three to four weeks to actually go from installing to jacking it around to being ready to install the next next piece [Music] once the outer rim was complete the supporting structure was removed by working backwards progressively replacing the bulky structural steel elements with 192 pre-tensioned heavy-duty cables that contain enough wire to reach from dubai to cairo that's 2 400 kilometers if you laid it all out flat although no one ever does that now we had to be really careful at this point because we couldn't over stress the permanent smokes so we did went round and did a complete resolution of this and again each each of those exercises each of that removing the steel putting in the new spoke cables tensioning up the spoke cables is taking about three weeks you're almost into six months of work just to remove the um that steel work with virtually all of the iron dubuy's structural integrity coming from the temporary framework up to this point every element was painted white to match the colour of the finished wheel that's not for aesthetic reasons but to prevent the darker and lighter elements from expanding unevenly in the dubai heat a phenomenon that could cause the rim to warp and buckle with its superstructure complete the 48 passenger cabins were attached to the outside of the rim in a methodical pattern all to keep the wheel as close to balanced as possible and to prevent its driving mechanism from becoming overstressed now speaking of the driving mechanism remember the jacking system that was part of the temporary works well that's now a permanent and integral part of the structure having been modified with 64 tyres positioned against the rim they slowly rotate and push the wheel around using friction at a rate of one revolution every 38 minutes designed to carry up to 40 passengers at a time each cabin is more than double the size and weight of those on the london eye each is fitted with a driving mechanism that has the fairly fundamental job of rotating it at the same speed as the wheel but in the opposite direction so the floor stays horizontal no matter where it is in the rotation before the passengers decide they wanted to go out to to one side um in a ferris wheel but as you might imagine the the gondola would all rotate and it would start tipping this experience doesn't happen because it's all driven and still we have a perfectly horizontal floor for the passengers originally set to open ahead of expo 2020 like most things last year that just didn't happen iron dubai is now set to open on october 21st although press and invited guests will have already been for a ride what was my proudest moment there were many just in terms of some of these engineering feats and to have been integrally involved um from the outset um on it however probably the proudest was actually i got the opportunity to take some friends and family up on the wheel to be able to share that experience with them and just yeah that made me incredibly proud while some great observation wheels have failed to achieve the same popularity as the london eye i'm dubai's incredible heights and unobstructed views will undoubtedly make it the newest landmark in what's now a city of engineering triumphs 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Channel: The B1M

Views: 89,215

Rating: 4.9227557 out of 5

Keywords: B1M, TheB1M, Construction, architecture, engineering, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, observation wheel, eye dubai, dubai eye, ain dubai, Dubai Expo 2020, UAE, London Eye, World's deepest pool, world's biggest wheel, biggest observation wheel, united arab emirates, burj khalifa, abu dhabi, dubai expo, expo 2020

Id: euRfrOcao4A

Length: 8min 53sec (533 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 06 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/666dollarfootlong]

Don't care, Dubai sucks

Edit: sorry if that was a bit mean lol, the engineering is pretty impressive, but ever since I saw that one mealtimevideo exposing what a shithole Dubai is, I can't help but feel really pissed of at anything related to it

[u/plluviophile]

dubi with another tiny dick energy project. who's surprised?

[u/Fi3br]

I wonder how many slaves died making that ugly thing?

[u/foldedturnip]

The wonder wheel is the best ferris wheel. 🎡

[u/porkchopnet]

Does anyone actually like riding on these things?

Every time I’m on one I’m always happier to get off.