Professional prefabrication on Bayer Construct designs

With more than 20 years of professional experience, the Hungarian-owned Bayer Construct is one of Central Europe's leading construction and property development groups. Prefabrication is becoming increasingly common in the buildings they construct, as one of the company's main strengths is efficiency, both in terms of costs and human resources. The company purchases the prefabricated elements required for its buildings from VIASTEIN Kft.. VIASTEIN Kft. It began production at the paving stone factory in Biharkeresztes in the second half of 2017, and in 2018, a paving stone refining plant was completed at the same location. Prefabrication of concrete elements began in the summer of 2021 as the third phase of development of the factory complex at the state-of-the-art plant.

The production of preassembled products is a major driver of efficiency, which is a priority for the Group. They help to reduce construction costs and construction time in certain construction developments and projects.

The plant, which is rare even in Europe due to its extremely high level of equipment and high precision concrete product manufacturing capabilities, will produce a variety of elements for the Zugló ZVK project investment. Eight buildings – one residential and seven office buildings – are being constructed on a seven-hectare site next to Bosnyák Square.

In this article, we describe the manufacturing process and the strict schedule for their installation in the facilities under construction for the ZVK project in Zugló.

Prefabrication has many advantages

Prefabricated elements require more preparation, but require less time to install on site. Structures are more dimensionally accurate, have more consistent quality and the positioning of the installed materials is more secure. As a result, the construction is more cost-effective and faster," says Gergely Szalai, project manager of the ZVK project.

Two types of prefabricated elements are used in the ZVK buildings:

• on the cellar floors bark panels - these are 5-7cm thick plates, which incorporate the bottom mesh reinforcement, the tirgons and if necessary cooling-heating piping, as well as mechanical, electrical boxing and exclusion. They are then overlaid with a layer of concrete to shoulder the load-bearing capacity.
• And at the ascending levels circular hollow planks which are thicker and therefore do not require temporary support during construction. No mechanical or electrical components can be integrated into the circular planks.

In the project in zugló, the most modern bark panel elements manufactured in Biharkeresztes so far were installed, for example, in the Zenit Residence and the Office1 and Office3 office buildings.

Product design is the foundation of everything

We asked Zsolt Kovács, Managing Director of VIASTEIN Kft., about the preparation and production process of the concrete elements.

When asked, he explained that the production of building components is based on product design, which is carried out by the experts in the design division of Bayer Construct Zrt.. The preparation of the ZVK project in zugló started already in 2021.

The aim was standardisation, i.e. to design uniform elements with slight geometric variations that are most efficient to produce, as they can be produced more quickly and easily from templates.

Earlier, Tamás Iski, head of the design division, told our newspaper that they do not simply provide a product design, but also an information package to the plant: quantitative and geometric data that help to track changes in inventory, as well as data for the automated production lines.

"The designer has a great deal of freedom in terms of bark elements, because on the production line we work with any geometry between minimum and maximum dimensions. From a transport point of view, and because of the manoeuvrability and crane handling, we produce elements up to 2.4 metres wide and 8-9 metres long", the director began.

Production of the bark panel element

A total of 40 3×12 metre tables will be used on the Progress production line, with production starting with an automatic shuttering robot. The elements are not produced in a single template, as is the case with columns or beams, but are individually formed, each element being re-shuttered by the robot. After the formwork has been cleaned, the robot uses the production data to form the geometry and records the position of the technical units and wiring on the table.

Then the electrical boxes are placed on the table with their magnetic connection points, and at the next station, the pre-ordered cooling and heating panels, electrical junction boxes, switches and light wiring are inserted under the reinforcing steel mesh in the positions painted on the plans.

"It is not uncommon for a single bark panel to extend into several rooms, so it is not uncommon to find the location of individual ducts, outlets and cooling-heating panels. This is why product design is of paramount importance", Zsolt Kovács underlines.