ABSTRACT
Sharaan Resort #1 is a hotel project in the AlUla region, located in the province of Medina in Saudi Arabia, which is completely sculpted from the inside of a sandstone cliff (project owner: Royal Commission for AlUla). It includes 17 levels with different arrangements of corridors and rooms that partly opens through the cliff, 4 vertical shafts traversing the levels, and several access tunnels. The excavation is realized by conventional methods, i.e. road headers and excavators. Currently, preliminary construction works are ongoing, while main excavation works shall begin in 2025. During the excavation of the resort, pollutants will be released in the confined underground space (mainly: exhaust from construction plants, dust, heat). Consequently, an appropriate temporary ventilation system is required to ensure an air quality at the worksites compliant with the relevant standards for occupational health and safety. In addition, the hot environment during summer combined with the heat released by the construction machines require possibly the application of measures to limit the exposure of the workers to heat stress (either air-cooling or limitation of the working time during hot periods). This paper presents details of the temporary ventilation concepts selected to cover all specific challenges of this particular worksite (narrow spaces, intricate network, dust) as well as details of the cooling study carried out by means of numerical simulations to quantify the risk of exposure to heat stress and allow the contractor to take educated decisions upon best appropriate measures (air-cooling or limitation of working time).
