Sabiha Gokcen International Airport

Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (SGIA) is one of the two major airports serving Istanbul, the
largest city in Turkey with a population exceeding 11 million. The new terminal is the worlds
largest seismically isolated building. Steel, the main construction material used in the project,
was mostly provided by ArcelorMittal.

Located about 30 miles northeast of central Istanbul, SGIA has currently an annual passenger
capacity of 5 million. GMR Infrastructure, LIMAK and Malasian Airport signed an agreement with
the Turkish Governments Ministry of Defence on March 2008 for SGIA extension complex which
is a design-build-operate project. The new integrated domestic and international terminal will
serve 10 million passengers per year for first stage till 2015, then 25 million passengers per year
capacity with extension of the terminal.

The new terminal building and its facilities total construction area is 320,000 square meters
integrated domestic and international terminal building, a hotel, a new VIP terminal and various
other airport facilities.

Seismic Design
According to the clients requirements, two performance levels were defined for seismic analysis
of the terminal building. These performance levels are as follows:

1. The building was designed for Operational Level i.e., no structural and no non-structural
damage for an earthquake hazard with a uniform 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years,
which is equivalent to a hazard with a return period of 475 years. This earthquake hazard is
commonly known as Design Basis Earthquake (DBE) or design earthquake in practice.

2. The building was designed for Structural Immediate Occupancy for an earthquake hazard with
a uniform 2% probability of exceedance in 50 years, which is equivalent to a hazard with a return
period of 2,475 years. This earthquake hazard is known as Maximum Considered Earthquake
(MCE).

The design of a standard fixed-based structure that will satisfy the stringent seismic performance
objectives listed above will be uneconomical and infeasible; therefore it was decided to
implement a base-isolation system. A seismic base isolation system with energy dissipation
capabilities enables shifting/elongation of the fundamental periods of structure and provides a
significant increase in the effective damping. These two key features provide a significant
reduction in the seismic design forces and inter-story drifts of the superstructure, and hence

reduce the risk of structural and non-structural earthquake damage. Triple friction pendulum
devices were used to build the worlds largest seismically isolated building. There are 300 triplefriction-pendulum isolators that are distributed over the entire plan. Note that, the triple-frictionpendulum bearings, with a theoretical period of 3 seconds and displacement limit of 345 mm, is
selected on the basis of performance and cost. The effective damping provided by the isolators
is 38% and 30% at DBE and MCE events, respectively.

Structural System
The new SGIA Terminal building is a steel structure with a plan dimension of 160 meters by 272
meters. The total building height is approximately 32.5 meters. The building consists of 4 stories
above and a basement floor below the isolation plane. Typical floor heights are 6 meters at the
ground floor and 5 meters at the upper levels.

The gravity system of the superstructure is composed of concrete filled steel decks, composite
steel beams and composite steel columns. The superstructure resists lateral loads by a system
of steel moment frames through rigid horizontal diaphragms. The clear span length supported by
the columns is 16 meters in both directions. All structural members, such as columns and
beams, are built-up members. Plates were cut in appropriate shapes, and were connected to
each other by welding in order to constitute required structural sections. Floor rib beams are
made of grade S235 steel plates, and columns and main beams are made of grade S355 steel
plates. Rib beam layout orientations are changed in every main cell (16x16m), so all the main
beams are loaded with same gravity loads. The framing for the stairs and elevators below the
isolation plane is suspended from and braced by the isolated super structure above. The
concrete compressive strength is selected to be 35 Mpa for composite columns.

The roof system consists of light steel space purlin systems running longitudinally and located at
every 8 meters and braced in the transverse direction. The purlin has a parabolic curve form with
a depth of 12 meters and 6 meters placed evenly next to each other. They are pin-supported by
the top of the columns at every 32 and 48 meters. Purlins consist of pipe members which are in
grade S355. Unbalanced snow drift load was taken into consideration in analysis due to the
shape of the roof.

Total structural steel quantity is 18,600 tones in SGIA new terminal building. ArcelorMittal
Distribution Solutions - Rozak was the main steel supplier for this project providing majority of
steel beams and plates.