Burj tower fea:Layout 1 29/11/06 12:53 Page 13

project: burj dubai

Burj Dubai raises the

tall building stakes

The Burj Tower currently under construction in Dubai aims to

be the tallest building in the world by completion in 2008.
It had reached the 73rd floor out of more than 160 when
Kathy Stansfield visited the site in September

I
n the construction hot-house that is
Dubai, the Burj Tower is aiming
high. It is planned to reach ‘more
than 700m’ where the highest existing
tower in the world is Taipei 101 at
509m. Its slim, shiny, needle-like struc-
ture, narrowing towards the top with
stepped, spiralling terraces, is clad in
stainless steel and glass around a
three-pronged concrete footprint. It
will spear the sky at the heart of a
huge mixed development schemes –
30 000 low and high-rise residential
apartments, retail and business park
development – overlooking a man-
made lake and with the world’s largest
shopping mall wrapped round the
3.5km boulevard at its base. The whole Above: Burj
site covers 1km square, and the tower Tower under
is the anchor for the rest of the devel- construction
opment which is all progressing at the Right: Visual of
same time with typical Dubai speed. the completed
Constructed substantially of tower
concrete with a steel pinnacle on top, it Left: The Tower is
will contain a mix of residential, part of a huge
commercial, hotel and entertainment development
development for the client, Emaar
Properties, one of the world’s largest
real estate developers. It may not be
due for completion until the end of
2008, but when 1000 flats were offered
for sale off-plan, they were snapped up
within 48 hours.
The design of the tower was

5 December 2006 – The Structural Engineer|13

Burj tower fea:Layout 1 29/11/06 10:43 Page 14

project: burj dubai

developed following a 4-week architec- Diagrams ents an asymmetric form to the wind where ‘floral, nested leaf-like shapes
tural concept competition in 2004, won showing how the and reduces sympathetic resonance like the desert flower’s six-petalled
by tall building experts, Skidmore shape of the with the wind.’ Satellite data was used major and minor lobes’ become appar-
Owings & Merrill (SOM) architects tower responds to supplement meteorological data ent. The shape lends itself well to resi-
and engineers in the US. Hyder to wind which is not available for such tall dential use with, in effect, three
Consulting Middle East Ltd was buildings. When the prevailing winds residential blocks attached to the
appointed to take on responsibility for were taken into account, the whole central core maximising the ratio of
site supervision, design adoption on building was rotated to the optimum light and depth for each. The X walls
site, and is the architect and engineer position. created by the residential units’ cellu-
of record for the construction phase of The triform footprint with its hexag- lar forms gave the required lateral
the work. onal core has been likened to that of resistance and stability. ‘The spiral
the desert flower Hymenocallis. The form derived from the wind testing
Evolution of the design designers looked at influences such as also meant that at each modular
SOM’s Associate Partner, architect Eric ‘plants and other organic forms, terrace setback there was no need to
Tomich, told The Structural Engineer Islamic architecture and traditional transfer column load’, explained Mr
that the challenge of the $1bn Burj cursive geometries and calligraphy of Tomich. ‘As the terraces step back, the
Tower was not just to build tall or even the Middle East, and found ways to columns move back to the next set of
‘super tall’ but ‘ultra tall’. Though the Description of integrate those as combined geome- rectangular columns avoiding the
design is architecturally complex, he structural tries’. You see this when viewing a complexity of column transfers and
said ‘it’s a conservative design, using elements drawing of the tower from the top, making it simple to plan and organise
known engineering principles and
methodologies, pushing systems and
engineering and using the best materi-
als. It is not experimental.’ He
acknowledged that improvements in
material sciences ‘have allowed us to
do more; we have more and better
analytical tools and structural analysis
to predict behaviour’.
SOM’s approach to its design was
interdisciplinary. He said: ‘Working on
very tall buildings, the structure and
architecture are interlinked and insep-
arable’. Wind tunnel tests with RWDI
in Canada were a crucial part of the
process of understanding and defining
the tower’s shape, rising in a series of
ellipses, with the 24 tiers following a
spiral stepping pattern to the top. ‘It
was originally conceived to be a three-
legged tower because this is a very
stable shape laterally as two wings
collect the pressure, the third stabilises
it. The historical data showed that
changing its shape as the height
increased would increase stability’,
said Mr Tomich. ‘We revised and
refined the wind tunnel model at
various stages all the way through and
tested at 12º increments around 360º.
We found that as the shape changed, it
reduced the vortex shedding and asso-
ciated lateral displacement. The
terraces step up in a spiral which pres-

14|The Structural Engineer – 5 December 2006

Burj tower fea:Layout 1 29/11/06
the apartments’.
While the client wanted the tallest
building in the world, the original aspi-
ration was not in fact for it to be as tall
as it will be, but the designers found
that it became more stable with height.
‘The wind engineering information
allowed us to increase the height with
the helical asymmetry giving us the
increased stability we needed’, said Mr
Tomich. There is expected to be about
1.2m of lateral movement in the occu-
pation zone of the tower and more
movement at the very top which is not
occupied. The structure changes from
concrete to steel at the 154th floor due
to the relationship of the core size to
the diminishing floor plate, giving
more flexibility to the space. The steel
structure is itself the height of many
regular towers.
‘One of the most critical concepts in
the structure was giving the tower
lateral stability through the shear
walls, forming a buttressed core’,
explained Mr Tomich. ‘The shear wall
elevation has openings and the load
path comes down diagonally outwardly
under load; the problem was to get this
through, avoiding openings in sensitive
high load path places. Steel link beams
were embedded in shear walls at key
levels using some of the largest fabri-
cated beams I’ve ever seen’. They
weigh 24t each and consist of built up
sections of up to 100mm thick steel
which has to be hoisted up the struc-
ture and embedded in concrete. The
outrigger walls at each terrace setback
provide lateral and torsional stability
and carry the load down at each wing
tip. There is so much rotation at the tip
that the outrigger forms a truss at the
hammerhead.
The wind tunnel testing also helped
enormously with the cladding design,
identifiying the design wind pressures
10:43 Page 15
project: burj dubai
Above, left: 3D staircases and fire-fighting lifts
view of single throughout the building. Redundant
storey computer and surplus water supply is stored in
analysis mode large tanks to provide 60mins use for
Right: 3D fire fighting which is generally gravity
rendering of the fed.
concrete
structure Building the Burj
Below: Exterior All the engineering, architecture and
wall cladding services were designed at SOM’s offices
to be used in the cladding system system in Chicago and the client was provided
engineering. This in turn affected with complete coordinated construction
cladding loads, mullion thicknesses documents. Mr Tomich said: ‘Hyder’s
and fixings. The wind tunnel role as supervision consultant is vital:
information identified the locations of they are responsible in the eyes of the
the highest wind loads as well as Dubai Municipality for getting the
‘hotspots’ of the extreme pressures at tower built properly, with their local
wing tips and leeward edges. presence, ensuring the follow-through
Additionally, wind tunnel testing was in the design intent of the structure,
done for the terraces to establish architecture and services’. The big
parameters for occupants comfort and challenges of building in concrete in
safety. The system uses a prefabricated
unitised panel system, with thermally
broken mullions and insulated double
glazed units, typically floor to floor at
3.8m high. The resulting curtain-wall
design is one of polished and textured
surfaces, incorporating reflective glass,
polished stainless steel tubular fins on
the vertical mullions, and embossed
patterned stainless steel spandrel
panels.
Providing for coordination of serv-
ices, structure and achitecture has
been a huge challenge. ‘There has been
an ongoing dialogue between our struc-
tural engineers, architects and services
engineers,’ said Mr Tomich, ‘but the
result is better because we have all
three disciplines in-house. ‘There will
ultimately be over 100 000 openings in
the structure, and they had to be right
as the shear walls are very high
strength concrete and are 600mm thick
– openings could not therefore be
cored, cut or created later.
The fire protection and evacuation
facilities are based on a combination
the International Building Code and
National Fire Protection Agency and
British Standards, but due to the
height of the building, special consider-
ations were made to provide fire and
life safety ‘enhancements’ which
increased the size of protected escape
routes, provided areas of refuge from
fire areas, and pressurised fire
5 December 2006 – The Structural Engineer|15
Burj tower fea:Layout 1 29/11/06
project: burj dubai
Dubai are coping with the effects of
heat and salinity.
The ultimate possible height of the
tower is limited by the foundations,
which were completed in just 12
months. A total of 45 000m3 of concrete
was used weighing more than 110 000t.
The 200 1.5m piles supporting the
tower are founded 50m deep in the
underlying calcarenite and calcareous
sandstone. The piles are tied together
by a 3.7m thick, 8000m2 concrete raft.
Rob Pickering, Hyder’s Project
Manager, explained that as the water
table lies only 1.5m below ground level
the piles are protected from seawater
and its effects by a number of corrosion
protection systems. Construction
Manager, David Bradford of Turner
Construction, explained that money
was saved by using polymers to keep
the holes open instead of bentonite
slurry which was originally envisaged.
‘This allowed the concrete to key into
the boreholes better for skin friction. It
was a first in Dubai and meant savings
of 15%.’
A major innovation for Dubai is the
use of high-performance concrete for
the core and walls up to the 156th
floor, to give the concrete the necessary
plasticity to be pumped higher than it
has ever been pumped before. Mr
Pickering said that the flow and
16|The Structural Engineer – 5 December 2006
10:43 Page 16
strength of the concrete is improved by
using a combination of microsilica
fume, pulverised fly ash and ground
granulated blast furnace slag. The
challenge of pumping concrete higher
than 600m means that in the summer
it has to be done at night to avoid the
45º heat during the day. It takes 4
hours to pour each 100m3 of the
concrete wall. The contractor, Samsung
Corporation, uses special hydraulic
pumps which operate at 350bar pres-
sure compared to the more usual
100bar. Mr Bradford said ‘Jump
forming is the key to speed and
savings’ and had been incorporated by
SOM into the design. ‘Some gypsum
walls were replaced by concrete so we
could do as much up-front as we can,
catching the walls in the basic struc-
ture’. Construction operates on a 3-day
cycle, floor to floor, with three separate
jump forming systems in the centre of
the building; floors are then
constructed behind it. The outriggers
require two formwork systems in each
wing, with a pour one day and jacking
the next.
All the reinforcement is assembled
on the ground and lifted up as a unit.
There are three cranes on the tower
which are used mostly for this. Mr
Bradford explained: ‘The rebar is
assembled in large cages on the
ground, offloaded into the fabrication
area and assembled in 5m high, 7m
long walls complete with door open-
ings. The crane picks the whole thing
up and drops the rebar into the form-
work, guides it down, lines it up and
Above: ties it before the jumps are pulled
Foundations back. Every wall is a masterpiece of
under engineering, and the process is like
construction. clockwork.’
Core under In mid September the tower was 73
construction. floors high and will have reached 100
Top right: floors by the end of 2006. Cladding
Jump forming started in November. Around 2500
concrete walls workers were on site working in three
shifts 24/7, and the labour force will
peak at 5000 in 2007.
(Thanks to Hyder, SOM, and EMAAR
for supplying many of the photos in
addition to those I took on site*). se
Right: Burj Tower
reaches the 73rd
floor, general
view and at and
the top of the
Tower*