Airbus A380 assembly site Jean-Luc Lagardère made with ArcelorMittal steel

Szczegółowe informacje

On 10 January 2003, Airbus A380 passed a significant threshold of 100 orders - the first deliveries foreseen for 2006. The Airbus assembly plant for this double-deck 4-engine jet airliner, the Jean-Luc Lagardère Plant at Aéro Constellation in Blagnac, was opened in 2004.

With a length of 250 m, a width of 115 m, and a height of 46 m, the main hall for the assembly of the Airbus A380 in Blagnac, near Toulouse, will not slip by unnoticed. The assembly factory of the A380 covers a floor area of 122 500 m² and is comprised of a main fabrication hall measuring 250 x 115 metres with a height of 46 metres and includes 6 smaller halls (100 x 100 m) and 23 000 m2 of office space.

Steel structure

Around 35 000 tonnes of steel were used for the structures of the plant's industrial buildings which basically consist of rolled sections and welded plate girders. Most of the hot rolled sections and the steel plates used as components for the welded sections were supplied by ArcelorMittal.

A steel envelope

The facade cladding of the assembly halls is also made of steel. Around 60 000 m² of the facades are clad in a total of 2500 tonnes of steel, while 500 tonnes of stainless steel were used for a 6000-metre-square facade area.

The door area covers 21 000 m2, of which the majority (18 000 m2) is clad in stainless steel.

The main cladding product used for the the facade is Ecaille®, a folded steel sheet from the ArcelorMittal Construction aesthetic product range. Ecaille® is fabricated with carbon steel sheets prepainted with the high performance Hairexcel® coating (colour intense) and with stainless steel (annealed and grained 220) used mainly for the door areas.

The roofing, representing an area of 121 000 m², is covered by self supporting trapezoidal steel sheets also fabricated by ArcelorMittal.