Has Dubai's Latest Megaproject Failed?

Ain Dubai hasn't moved for 18 months — and no one knows why.

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[harvey]

Similar thing happened in Australia with the 120 metre tall, "Melbourne Wheel": it opened in 2008 ... 40 days later it closed as the wheel had structural problems. Eventually it was scrapped and rebuilt in 2013 it finally reopened. It closed due to Covid and now remains permanently closed!

[MartinBrenner]

"Germany’s Technical Inspection Association, or TUV, confirmed that it was involved in the Ain’s construction but had withdrawn its certification for the structure. The group, which tests and provides independent safety certifications for a variety of technical systems, gave no further comment, saying it was bound by a nondisclosure agreement. The Ain’s media office did not respond to requests for comment." That doesn't sound good. So the wheel failed the TÜV? (Although motorists in Germany can get their mandatory car inspections done by different companies "passing the TÜV" is commonly used to mean your car passed the inspection).

[awhite]

Makes you realise how remarkable the London eye is, built over 20 years ago, in a tricky location and still spinning daily.

[_baert]

9 minutes of "we dont know" and "no one will tell us"

[hgbugalou]

You do not close suddenly with such short notice without a catastrophic finding on an inspection. Sounds like we are lucky nothing more dramatic happened.
My guess would be bearing problems. That is a tall order for a moving part of that size.

[flyingfan]

I rode it exactly a month after it opened in November 2021, during sunset nonetheless. It was an incredible experience due to its sheer size knowing that it was the largest wheel at the time and now maybe even forever. But I can definitely say that the only thing I heard during my ride were the two crying children.

[kreiseltower]

I am a mechanical engineer and design machines for automation. In past projects, we have fallen for false claim of the capabilities of these sort of bearings.... D-Glide... Dry-Lin... All had way more wear than expected within a really short time frame of usage. In all cases, we had to swap them for traditional bearings with steel balls. But in our machines we're only talking about of a couple of hundred or thousand of euros of parts that had to be swapped. It wasn't too easy though, because the space needed for a traditional bearing (bigger diameter) wasn't there in the design.

If the whole hub of this wheel is purpose build for such a "slim" bearing, which leaves no space for something proper, I can't see how this can get fixed.
But at this point, that is only speculation.

[Centurian]

I guess the wheels on the bus is the only thing that goes round and round

[tinderbox]

It's "the safest place to be in Dubai."
Translation: It's definitely on the verge of collapsing.

[Dremth]

"The Ain Dubai is the safest place to be in Dubai." Well, if that isn't the most suspicious doubling-down I've ever heard...

[william_at]

Ruins of Dubai, Sanghai and other mega-ego-cities will be excellent locations to film Blade Runner 3050

[GeshronTyler]

The fact that the wheel isn't turning, or can't turn, actually might now make it more vulnerable to storms... There's an abandoned amusement park in Berlin (Spreepark) that has a ferris wheel that turns with the wind, because it would collapse sooner if it didn't.

[mysticwolf]

From an engineering pov, the choice of bearings seems one of the more likely causes, and they probably underestimated the friction levels and cooling that it would require for this kind of operation to continuously smoothly..
Futher more, reading the stories of how it shook the ground while running and that it might be sinking would mean the foundations were miscalculated and that a scenario of it falling over (as one of the hotel owners fears) might actually be a real scenario we'll hear about in the news one day.
The AIN Dubai is evidence that just because you want to and are building bigger, don't necessarily mean it will be better..
I doubt Dubai will ever conceive publicly that the AIN and the island it sits on are a failure and instead remain silent on it whilst constructing their next "biggest in the world" structure.

[noelht]

We moved to Dubai five years ago, lived opposite this. When we got there it was fully constructed apart from the carriages. But they took it all down again, and then they put it all up again, and then it still didn’t go anywhere for two years. And now it isn’t working again. It’s been a complete mess up from start to finish. Completely epitomises everything in Dubai

[socalstr]

Dubai is like a standing suit of shining armor without a knight inside, and a knight won’t be inside “indefinitely.”

[mrklv]

Unfortunately, Dubai is famous for stopping megaprojectsat halfway, even if they are completed like this one

[CruiseControlM]

I live in Dubai and I think I might have some insight on what is going on. Hear me out... I have to clean my garage gate once or twice a year, depending on how dirty the machine and bearings get. The reason for them getting dirty? SAND!! It sounds to me that sand + the heat is the main issue. I just hope they can fix the issue soon bcoz peak season is around the corner!

[Mamorufumio]

I swear Dubai is looking like someone’s more popular minecraft server in the later stages, heck it even has a nether portal big enough to be ghast’s through

[Nazaman]

"Breaking new grounds on construction does have it's limits"

Spot on, and I feel there was no need to build so big in the first place.

[mark]

Nothing to worry about, it's now a giant sculpture like the Melbourne Star ferris whee!