A crew of constructors currently working on a huge new hotel and office complex in Los Angeles, USA, has set a new world record for the largest continuous concrete pour, a Guinness World Records adjudicator says.
A total of 21,200 cubic yards of cement (16,208.6m³) was used during the weekend pour as part of the foundations for the new Wilshire Grand Center.
The 73-storey hotel is being billed as the tallest building west of the Mississippi and is set to open to guests in 2017. It will soar 1,100feet (335.3m), making it the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River, and will have 900 rooms, convention space and offices. There also will be an outdoor terrace and a swimming pool on the 73rd floor.
The project is being developed by Korean Air at an estimated to cost more than US$1billion, and the site has been prepared the site by digging an 18foot (5.5m)-deep pit and lining it with 7 million pounds (3 million kilograms) of reinforcing steel before the concrete was added.
The record-breaking pour took 18 hours and started on a Saturday, with 208 trucks making over 2,100 trips to deliver concrete from eight production centres while 19 separate pumps fed 13 hoses to fill the site with 82 million pounds of concrete (37 million kilograms).
The pour beat existing record of 21,000 cubic yards set by The Venetian hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, in 1999, says Guinness World Records Michael Empric.
Empric monitored the pour overnight by smartphone before meeting with contractors and engineers on Sunday to check the final figures final numbers.
Describing the effort as “amazing” he said: “If they didn’t cool the concrete as it's poured, it'll go into this thermal reaction and crack,'' Empric said.
