Isocab N.V., a Belgian-based subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Steel AG, and ThyssenKrupp DAVEX GmbH, Gelsenkirchen, have supplied insulating panels and facade beams for an indoor ski resort in Dubai. The resort in the United Arab Emirates' biggest city was opened to the public in Janu-ary. The insulating panels - developed for cold room construction - were used for the interior walls and roof of the indoor skiing center. ThyssenKrupp DAVEX supplied its innovative DAVEX® beams for a glass facade.

Known as Ski Dubai, the center covers an area of 22,500 square meters and can accommodate up to 1,500 guests at any one time. The fire protection requirements are correspondingly high. That is why Isocab supplied an especially fire-resistant variant of its isocab IND insulating panel, comprising two steel sheets sandwiching a core of rigid PIR foam. PIR (polyisocyanate) foam of-fers the same insulating performance but far greater fire resistance than the PUR polyurethane rigid foam previously used in the majority of insulating panels. The twelve centimeter thick PIR core helps the isocab elements resist fire for up to 40 minutes. The product's fire rating was tested and certified to the UK-developed and internationally recognized LPCB standard. The PIR insulating panels are also classified as low flammability materials with low smoke generation in the event of fire under the EN 13501 standard valid in the European Union. Like all isocab prod-ucts, the panels are HCFC- and CFC-free.

The IND panels not only satisfy high safety standards, their insulating properties are also the equal of any challenge: the United Arab Emirates is one of the hottest regions in the world, with temperatures averaging over 40 degrees Celsius in the summer and occasional peaks of more than 50 degrees. In these conditions, the temperature inside the skiing center has to be kept at around minus 1.5 degrees Celsius during opening times. At night, when up to 750 cubic meters of fresh snow are produced in four to six hours, the inside temperature drops to minus six de-grees. Due to the humidity, the atmosphere in the center is corrosive; to combat this, the outer steel sheets of the isocab panels have a 275 gram per square meter coating of zinc, topped with a 35 gram per square meter layer of light blue paint.

The DAVEX® beams support a glass facade between a shopping mall, which is also part of the Ski Dubai complex, and the skiing center itself. For this ThyssenKrupp DAVEX is supplying dou-ble-T beams in heights of 180 and 200 millimeters. The beams are produced using an innovative roll-joining process which the company has patented. The beams made using this process are slimmer than conventional roll-formed or welded profiles and have more precise edges. More-over, DAVEX® beams offer the same load-bearing capacity as comparable products at signifi-cantly lower weight. The joining method also allows combinations of different materials such as carbon and stainless steel or plastic. The beams produced for Ski Dubai feature perforated webs which give the steel/glass design a particularly fine and transparent character.

Ski Dubai offers visitors five different slopes with varying levels of difficulty. The longest run is 400 meters and has a drop of 60 meters. The center's highest point is at 85 meters. Part of the Ski Dubai complex is given over to a roughly 3,000 square meter snow park with fun and games for parents and children. The center's operators can even arrange for it to snow from the pale blue roof of insulating panels.