Construction of Burj Khalifa

Overview
From the sands of the arabian deserts there rises the tallest man-made structure in the world. A city in the sky nearly half a kilometer tall. The Burj Dubai is the pinnacle of skyscraper engineering. It owes its success to six key inventions.
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450m

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452m 484m

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 Burj Khalifa ( known as Burj Dubai prior to its

inauguration), is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is currently the tallest man-made structure ever built, at 828 m (2,717 ft) Construction began on 21 September 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009 The building officially opened on 4 January 2010,[1][9] and is part of the new 2 km2 (490-acre) flagship development called Downtown Dubai at the 'First Interchange' along Sheikh Zayed Road, near Dubai's main business district. The total cost for the project was about US $1.5 billion(around 7500 crore INR).

 An army of cranes and labourers worked round the

clock to turn the city into a place of whole world to look after.

Leap1: Mobility
The first big obstacle to skyscraper was distance. The obvious solution to the problem was elevator. The Burj Dubai takes the idea of the elevator to the

extreme. It streches elevator technology to its ultimate limit. Burj Dubai is able to accommodate 35,000 people. Burj Dubai has 53 different elevators. Some move at an speed of 35km/hr and climb 120 floors within 50 secs. The biggest lifts carry more than 46 passengers

 As soon as elevator in Burj Dubai exceeds its safety

limit emergency break makes an action and stops it within few metres.

Leap2:Materials
As soon as a building reaches a height of 80m

traditional building materials will no longer strong enough. The skeleton of the Burj Dubai combines best of the steel . More than 30,000 tonnes of steel has been used very cleverly. The steel is embedded in artificial stone, concrete. The curtain wall of the burj dubai costed more than a 100 millionUSD. So before it was built on engineers took prototype sections for testing.

 So before it was built on engineers took prototype sections for testing by an aircraft engine simulates a desert storm.

Leap 3:Heat
A glass wall would not only allow a lot of solar

radiation into the building but also lot of heat.This would be absorbed by the objects inside which inturn would radiate heat into the surrounding and heat it up. And sealed glass window wouldnt let hot air to go outside.So things would become uncomfortable very quickly. Air Conditioning allows skyscrapers like Burj Dubai to rise up even in the hottest climate and there is hardly a place in the earth air conditioning matters more than Dubai. Temperature easily reaches 40 degree even in the shed and average humidity is 90 percent. A truly extreme enviroment for a skyscraper.

 The key to shielding the Burj Dubai from brutual desert sun is built into its glass skin.

The outside plane is coated with thin layer of metal.

Like sunscreen outerplate deflects the ultraviolet radiation which would otherwise heat up the building

 But the sunscreen

is useless against infrared that is radiated from hot desert sand. So the inner layer is coated with thin layer of silver that keeps the heat rays out.

 Over 30,000 glass panels enough to cover 17 football

fields protect Burj Dubai from scrotching heat.

Leap 4:Speed
The solution they came up with was the use of pre fabricated sections of towers and assemble them. They built the sections off site and shifted them to the tower construction site whenever needed

The only problem was how to lift super heavy 50 tonnes sections and put place quickly enough. The team found a revolutionary crane in Australia which could lift 5o tonn and four of them could reach at every corner of building

 This type of cranes are called kangaroo cranes. The kangaroo crane slift the steel cages up and place

them into special forms called jump forms . In those the concrete is put 12 hrs later when the concrete gains strength the form gets ready for the jump. Hydraulic piston pushes the form up and leaves the concrete block behind. It takes only two hrs for form to reach next level. This way Burj Dubai casted and placed layer by layer like a giant building.

Leap 5: Wind

The taller a steel skeleton gets the more it susceptible it is to bending in high winds.

High speed winds could cause upper floor to sway affecting the workers inside

 At this extreme height fighting the wind with rigid axis

skeleton(as done in sears tower) is not good enough. At high speed wind could be extremely dangerous for a skyscraper. Air rushing around the building form miny tornados . This area of low pressure suck the building sideways.

To get wind resistence architects designed a highly advanced aerodynamics Each section of the tower is designed to deflect the wind in a different direction. This disrupts the power of the high speed winds.

Leap6:EarthQauake
The Burj Duabai can withstand a massive earthquake upto

6 richter scale because it has massive reinforced concrete skeleton. Making a super tall building stand up in desert is requires special measures. The rock under Burj Dubai is frangible and saturated with ground water. Any big hole will cave in immediately . To stop this from happening engineers filled the pore with viscous polymer slurry which pushes the ground water through the edge. The concrete displaces the slurry and eventually hardens to form the foundation pile. Two hundreds of these piles work together to stop half a million ton of real estate giant to sink into the ground

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