Construction World December 2023

FUTURE EXOTICS - MIRAGE FIGHTER JET “F uture Exotics” is a supercar and luxury car retailer that has recently entered the South

as design engineers on the project was to ascertain whether or not it would be structurally possible to place the 7 ton jet on the roof of the building. In order to do this, we mapped out the entire structure and carried out rebar scanning and exposures in order to understand the load carrying capacities of the slabs, beams, columns and foundations of the building. It was our finding that the roof slab was not capable of withstanding the upward or downward forces of the Jet installation. Furthermore, the beams could not handle point loads and needed all loads to be spread over their length for them to work. Aspire Consulting therefore created a full steel mounting frame that was bolted to the columns and beams and suspended above the slab itself. The frame then had three main anchorage points that were to be used for connecting and holding down the Jet. The fixing of the Jet to the plane was challenging in that the Jet fuselage is only a few milometres thick and any bolt drilled through it would simply tear the frame. Aspire cConsulting therefore decided to mount the Jet at its wheels instead and created a fixing that went through the wheel holding points that can lock the jet in place. We then worked closely with Hilti SA to find a suitable chemical anchor that could withstand the high upwards forces bring imposed. This is another area where design innovation on Hilti's side was used. 

African market. The brand have decided to set up their new state of the art head office and showroom in Sandton and have thus bought over an existing building located on Sandton drive and have began an intense revamp project to repurpose the building to meet their needs. The renovation project involves the addition of a new floor level within the existing building, the addition of a full car detailing centre in the buildings basement, the alteration of the main entrance into a full out car showroom and the introduction of a two storey car lift to carry supercars and luxury vehicles up and down the building. The aim of the renovation was to reinvent the building in such a way that it would make a statement and also show off the brand's commitment to innovation, speed and high performance engines. As such, they took the bold decision to mount an actual Mirage Fighter Jet to the roof of the building. The Mirage Fighter Jet is a combat Jet that was used by the South African defence force. It is capable of reaching speeds of 2 555 kph and weighs approximately 15 tons. Aspire Consulting were appointed as the structural engineers on the project and were given the task of mounting the Jet on the roof of the building. This project award submission focuses on this element of the renovation project. Everything about the Mirage Jet is geared towards it flying. As such wind forces that blow over the structure and its wings have a tendency to create large uplift forces. Since the entire Jet had to be completely stripped internally for national security purposes, its dead weight was reduced from 15 tons to 7 tons. This meant that the effect of uplift forces was magnified even further. The holding down frame and bolt system employed thus had to be carefully designed in order to hold the Jet on the roof. The first challenge that we faced

PROJECT INFORMATION

• Company entering: Aspire Consulting Engineers • Client: Moti Group (Future Exotics)

• Main Contractor: Moti Group • Principal Agent: Moti Group • Consulting Engineer: Aspire Consulting

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22 nd Best Projects Awards 2023