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Higher Colleges Of Technology

Abu Dhabi Men’s College

Burj Khalifa – Design and Construction

$Description: C:\Users\h00214191\Desktop\burj_khalifa.jpg$ Professional Communication LSEC 307

Prepared by:

Most Valuable Professionals

Prepared for: Gregory Vrhovnik

Table of Content

1- Introduction – Ahmed Al Qasemi

2- Body

a. The Design of Burj Khalifa – Ahmed Al Qasemi / Khaled Al Marri

· Architecture Ahmed Al Qasemi

· Wind Tunnel Testing Khaled Al Merri

b. Structural Elements – Abdulla Al Baloushi / Ali Al Ramahi

· Foundation Ali Al Ramahi

· Structural system Abdulla Al Baloushi

· Exterior Cladding Abdulla Al Baloushi

· Fire safety Ali Al Ramahi

3- Conclusion Ali Al Ramahi

4- Bibliography Abdulla Al Baloushi

Introduction:

The grand opening of Burj Khalifa, also known as Burj Dubai, on the fourth of January 2010 was a milestone moment for Dubai to deservedly gain the title of “the world’s tallest building”. Despite of the financial crisis that struck Dubai in 2009, which put it through a major dilemma, the president of the UAE, H.H Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed, saved the day and Burj Dubai was completely delivered with a new name “Burj Khalifa” in honor of His Highness. This contribution shows how much the UAE is hand in hand to confront any obstacle and this not just about Dubai itself. This extraordinary skyscraper obviously needless to say, won a lot of awards and an icon for future sustainable construction that Dubai always will be proud of (Burj khalifa wows thousands 2010).

The beauty of this tower comes from the determination of the architecture Smith to deliver an outstanding project and a distinctive design that will make it an “everybody talks about design”. The complexion of this design should not influence the engineering standards of safety and economic wise. Thus, everything was considered before putting this project into action in every engineering aspect (Kamin B. 2010). Moreover, one of the major obstructions that design faced was Mother Nature. As we know, many high rises buildings are always affected by natural catastrophes and the region is known if its stability however, wind load for high rise buildings is something that should be taken into account. Hence, the design of this tower plays a great contribution into facing this issue.

Burj Khalifa with its luxurious amenities, visitors and residents should feel pleasant when using its facilities and in order to achieve that, the design of this structure must environmentally sustainable and user friendly for people to utilize. With respect to that, the safety of the people should be secured from any possible issues that might occur.

Nevertheless, this paper shows the early stages of building Burj Khalifa and the engineering used to design this structure. Furthermore, it will discuss more about the exterior and how it works against the most influential factors that a counter attack strategy should be might against the extreme heat in the desert of Dubai and the intense wind.

A. The design of Burj Khalifa:

1. Architecture of Burj Khalifa:

The distinctive design of Burj Khalifa grabbed the attention of millions all over the world. The world tallest building embraces both residential and hotel amenities in a Y-shaped sectional layout. It was not an easy decision to confirm the design in the real world before settling it down on papers. Many factors was taken into account before starting to construct the tower like the materials, equipments and layout The client Emaar properties handed the design of Burj Khalifa to Adrian Smith, the architect, in partnership with Skidmore, Owings and Merill (Burj Khalifa | Architect Magazine). They intended to design the tower in a Y-shape in order to get a maximum view of the Arabian Gulf and sustain stability and effectiveness at the same time (Burj Khalifa - World's Tallest Building). In addition to that, the wings concept in this design is to facilitate easy access to each part of the tower whether it was the hotel for the visitors or the residents into their apartments. As it rises towards the sky, the cross section of the tower decreases as a safety factor for wind load (Lowe, A., & Badih, 2010). Therefore, as it rises, it forms a sequence of terraces on certain elevations on each wing.

The tower is composed of three limbs around the hexagonal center core of the tower. These three wings of the tower happened to be a major component contributing to wind load factor. As a construction fact, the design concept was derived from other towers like Willis Tower and Palace three using a tube structure which is the center pipe and as an all-residential tower however, the design of it was neither tube shape nor all residential. They used approximately 4,000,000 kilograms of structural steel. Moreover, the central core of the tower is weighing around 320,000 kilograms and was erected from within lifted by a hydraulic jack up to height of 200 meters and the spire of tower contains communications tools (Burj Khalifa - World's Tallest Building). The exterior of Burj Khalifa consists of 142 thousand square meters of cladding system. The purpose of cladding system is to work as a thermal insulator for the high temperature in the region.

The interior design of Burj Khalifa brought the cultural characteristic to the design and brought past into the future. Like most of architects and well known figures who admire this masterpiece expressed their thoughts about Burj Khalifa, one thing was in common. They all addressed the sustainability of this structure and the efficiency of vertical residence which saves a lot of space on the ground (Lowe A. and Badih S. 2010).

2. Wind tunnel testing:

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With the rapid economic growth and development, Engineers and architects need to keep on track with structural evolution. Now days, engineers have started using new materials that haven’t used before in construction along with building new geometric unique shapes, and rising in the architectures. Therefore, they have to guarantee the full safety of the structure. One of the ways of safety is wind tunnel testing. This kind of tests is under the major of wind engineering and it is defined as “the rational treatment of interactions between wind in the atmospheric boundary layer and man and his works on the surface of Earth." (CPP: Wind Engineering, wind tunnel testing) The wind tunnel tests need to be done before the building, during the building and after finishing the structure. This could minimize the risk and save money and time especially the high rise buildings. The Benefits of the wind tunnel testing is to “improve knowledge of local wind conditions, optimize cladding design performance, substantial reduction in wind forces, eliminate need for supplementary damping, reduce risk, improve thermal comfort, and pedestrian comfort improved” (Burj Khalifa - Wind Tunnel Testing).

However, we have an excellent example in UAE, Dubai which is Burj Khalifa. Burj Khalifa has been tested through more than forty wind tunnel tests by the wind-engineering experts to check up how the wind could affect the structure with its occupants. The tests were verified from the early planning periods to examine Dubai’s weather to the large tests on the tower during the construction stages, and to the analysis of the climate at the base of the tower and around it. This processes of testing the tower pre-construction, while construction and post-construction is to warranty the safety of Burj Khalifa and its residents and the surroundings structures in all times. As known, the temperature and pressure changes as you elevate higher as shown in the chart below (the relation between the importance of wind and height) thus this apply in the tall buildings such as Burj khalifa (880m height). In order to deal with the level of changes in the building design, unusual studies were approved on Burj khalifa to overcome these issues.

B. The structural elements used to construct Burj Khalifa:

1. Foundation:

The foundation of Burj Khalifa is so important because if the foundation failed to take the load the tower will sink. (Burj Khalifa - RitchieWiki. 2012). They used 12500 m² of concrete in the construction of the foundation 54000 long ton of steel rebar. The concrete used in the foundation is a high dense, low permeability concrete. Also, a cathodic protection system was used in order to minimize the effects of corrosion (Burj Khalifa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).The foundation of this tower consists of 192 bored piles (Post, R 2010). It is 1.5 m in diameter and its deep in the ground to reach 50 m deep and the borehole was filled with viscous polymer slurry (Burj Khalifa - RitchieWiki. 2012)).The raft was constructed in four separate parts. In addition, the foundation is a “Y” shape in order to increase the wind resistance of the building (Jamal, H Design, Construction & Structural Details of Burj Khalifa). The geography of the ground was mostly soil and rocks which is generally loose to medium dense sand. Many methods were used to know the geotechnical of the site such as SPT sampling, double tube rock coring and they have done approximately 33 borehole drills to complete the geotechnical investigation (Post, R. 2010). The boreholes were made in 4 stages. First stage, 23 boreholes were made with depth of 90 meter. Second stage, 3 boreholes were drilled with cross-hole geophysics. Third stage, 6 boreholes with depth of 60 meter were made. Last stage, one borehole was drilled with depth of 140 meters.

2. Structural system:

This part will describe the structural system as simply as possible, First we have the shape of Burj Khalifa and its look like Y, and it has aesthetic and functional advantages, “ also on the other hand we have ideal for providing a high-performance, efficient structure. The structural system for the Burj Khalifa can be described as a “buttressed-core” and consists of high-performance concrete wall construction. Each of the wings buttresses the others via a six-sided central core, or hexagonal hub’’ (Baker, W. F., Pawlikowski, Structural Engineer), Also we have the corridor walls which they are interesting in design, In general “corridor walls extend from the central core to near the end of each wing, terminating in thickened hammer head walls. These corridor walls and hammerhead walls behave similar to the webs and flanges of a beam to resist the wind shears and moments. Perimeter columns and flat plate floor construction complete the system’’ (Burj Khalifa | Structural Elements), beside this “the building is spirals high and many different floor plates is have been provided because of wings setback and as results there is no structural transfer effect to the tower, in addition we have different width to the tower for each differing floor plate and these an advantage for the setback’’ (Burj Khalifa | Structural Elements)

3. Exterior cladding:

The exterior cladding process has begun in May 2007 and the mission accomplished was in September 2009. At the initial stage of installation, “the team progressed at the rate of about 20 to 30 panels per day and eventually achieved as many as 175 panels per day. Burj Khalifa has set a new world record for the highest installation of an aluminum and glass facade, at 512 meters. The total weight of aluminum used on Burj Khalifa is equivalent to that of five A380 aircraft and the total length of stainless steel bull nose fins is 293 times the height of Eiffel Tower in Paris. The exterior cladding is comprised of reflective glazing with aluminum and textured stainless steel spandrel panels and stainless steel vertical tubular fins. Close to 26,000 glass panels, each individually hand-cut, were used in the exterior cladding of the tower. Over 300 cladding specialists from China were brought in to do the work’’ (Staff 2010). Also the amazing about the cladding system is been designed to stand in Dubai extreme summer heat, for more confident about the system they brought a World War II airplane engine was used for dynamic wind and water testing. To get the idea about the curtain wall of Burj Khalifa they equivalent to 17 football (soccer) fields or 25 American football fields’’. (Burj Khalifa | Structural Elements | Exterior cladding).

4. Fire safety:

One of the concerns that the engineers had was building a tower that can be safe for the people in cases of fire. The design was done in order they can evacuate people fast and be safe through any fire emergency. The stairs are made of concrete “which is an inflammable material “. Also, they Burj Khalifa has a serves elevator which can hold over 5000 kgs. To make sure people are evacuated safely, pressurized and air conditioned areas were made every 25 floors (Burj Khalifa Structural Elements | Fire safety) the fire system consists of fire alarm and sprinkler systems to help with putting down the fire. Each floor have its own independent system, in case of fire they can locate the specific floor and alert the floor immediately above and below, other floors will be only alerted at early stages (Writer, S 2008) Fire safety at height). In addition, in case of emergency a special team was trained for a fast rescue in cases of fire. The team is trained very well to face fire and natural catastrophes such as earth quakes and sand storms. The team is always ready for any emergencies onsite. (Lowe, A., & Badih, S 2010)

Conclusion

In conclusion, at first we talked about the architecture of Burj Khalifa, who was in charge of designing and construction and the interior of the tower. Second, we discussed the definition of wind tunnel testing, the major benefits of these tests and the wind tunnel used in Burj Khalifa. Third, we talked about the foundation used in Burj Khalifa , the shape of the foundation and the size of the foundation needed to be used and the condition of the soil in the site of Burj Khalifa. Afterward, we talked about the structural analysis of the tower such as the shape of the building and how the shape of the building play big role in resisting wind. After that, we discussed the exterior cladding of the building and the panels of the cladding and the design of it. Last, the fire system used in the landscaper and the emergency team reaction in case of any emergency. Burj Khalifa is an amazing Engineering achievement. The design of it makes it one of the most appealing and greatest looking skyscrapers. Regardless of how skyscrapers are built, Burj Khalifa will always have its mark in history in fields of engineering and architecture.

Word Count: 2312 words

Bibliography

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Burj Khalifa - RitchieWiki. (2012, February 22). RitchieWiki - Equipment Specifications, Information, and Photos - RitchieWiki. Retrieved November 29, 2012, from http://www.ritchiewiki.com/wiki/index.php/Burj_Dubai

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Lowe, A., & Badih, S. (2010, January 6). Burj Khalifa is an outstanding example of sustainable architecture | GulfNews.com. Latest News, Pictures, Video, Multimedia | Gulf News - The Middle East's News homepage. Retrieved November 29, 2012, from http://gulfnews.com/business/general/burj-khalifa-is-an-outstanding-example-of-sustainable-architecture-1.563396

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Khaled Jamal CGB

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Project-Burj khalifa

Burj Khalifa – Design and Construction

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