Case History: The Mosque of al-Ghuri, Egypt

The Solution

The Cintec stitching system was extensively used at al-Ghouri. These reinforcement anchors, up to 12 metres long, serve to stiffen each individual wall immensely. The walls of al-Ghouri are generally of two facing skins in-filled with a core of rubble. The large arched openings in the mosque are particular points of weakness in the structure.

Longitudinal ties in each of the stone facings of the wall above the arch would serve to resist the thrusts naturally produced by the arch as well as serving to assist the walls to resist the next earthquake. In addition to longitudinal ties, transverse ties of length equal to the thickness of the wall were introduced to increase the strength of the wall. The Cintec stitches would also be used to tie the roof structure to the perimeter walls and create a diaphragm action. Again this is an internationally recognised system of introducing greater stiffness and earthquake resistance into a structure. The beauty of the Cintec anchor is that it contains the grout to be used within a sleeve and control of grout flow and its impact upon the existing structure is therefore very good.