CE 202

STEEL CONSTRUCTION
(ALMAS TOWER,. DUBAI, UAE)

SUBMITTED BY:
NESTOR JAY DAGALEA
BSCE 2A

SUBMITTED TO:
ENGR. BARTOLOME ANANO

INTRODUCTION
The Dubai Multi Commodity Centres
Almas Tower (Diamond Tower) is a
360m high slender
office tower located in the Jumeirah
Lake Towers development in Dubai,
United Arab Emirates (UAE.
The building consists of five
basements, two podium levels,
60 storeys of offices and three
mechanical floors. It has a total floor
area of approximately 85,000m2.
A typical tower floor plan is in the
form of two diagonally offset ellipses,
with a floor plate approximately
64m long and 42m wide.

The floor plan from level 53 to level 64 consists of only one of the two
ellipses. An 81m slender spire peaks at 360m, forming the highest point in
the development. Construction of the office building began in early 2005
and was completed in 2009 with the installation of some remaining
cladding panels at the top of the tower. The building was topped out in
2008, and became the tallest building in Dubai until 2009 when it was
surpassed by Burj Khalifa.

CONSTRUCTION
Almas Tower is located on its own artificial island in the centre of the
Jumeirah Lakes Towers Free Zone scheme, the tallest of all the buildings
on the development. It was designed by Atkins Middle East, who designed
most of the JLT Free Zone complex. The tower was constructed by the
Taisei Corporation of Japan in a joint venture with Arabian Construction
Co. (ACC) who were awarded the contract by Nakheel Properties on 16
July 2005.

Building Usage
The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), the developer of the
tower, was the first to move in. The DMCC moved its corporate
offices along with the Dubai Diamond Exchange to the unfinished
tower on 15 November 2008. Almas Tower now houses facilities
that provide a wide range of services for the regions diamond,
colored gemstones and pearls industry. Along with the Dubai
Diamond Exchange, these include the Dubai Gems Club, the Dubai
Pearl Exchange, the Kimberley Process Certification offices and
access to secure transportation agencies such as Brinks and Trans
guard, in addition to networking and meeting rooms. Diamond
cutting and exchange take place at the tower. Due to the type of
transactions taking place at the tower, high security is installed.
Almas tower ranked 8th in the 2009 Emporis Skyscraper Awards.

STRUCTURAL SYSTEM
The following constraints had a significant impact on the
structural
design of the tower and were considered at concept stage design
the office floors to have an efficiency of not less than 80%
flexible column-free and wall-free officespace
final sellable area to be within 2.5% of the area sold by the
client to ultimate office owners
each office floor to be capable of supporting a 2.5t safe placed
anywhere within an office space.
The principal structural framing consists essentially of a tube-in
tube system. This is made up of a reinforced concrete peripheral
frame and a central core wall, which are connected to each
other by central spine beams on each floor and outrigger walls
at service floor levels.

A parametric study of the effectiveness of different

arrangements of the external frame, belt walls and
outrigger walls was carried out and the findings are
shown:
Parameters

Core wall

Core wall +
peripheral
frame

Core wall +
peripheral
frame
+ belt walls
+ outriggers

Natural
period:
seconds

14.6

12.2

9.6

50yard wind
sway: mm

1785

12.2

771

The peripheral frame consists of 1000mm deep, 500mm wide

beams supporting precast units which span onto peripheral
columns. The columns are at a maximum spacing of 5m
and form part of the lateral load resisting system. The
columns are designed compositely in the lower half of the
building to keep the column sizes small compared to what
would be needed for a reinforced concrete column alone.

Cross section
through a
typical
composite
column
(dimensions in
mm)

A typical floor slab consists of 320mm thick hollow-core

precast panels with 80mm thick structural topping. It ties
the external frame to the central reinforced concrete core
walls or central spine beam. The floor is also designed to
act as a diaphragm, transferring lateral wind and seismic
forces to the central core and external frame. The precast
slab option was chosen because of programme benefits:
they
are
comparatively
lightweight
and
provide
uninterrupted space for services. The plant floors at levels
42, 121, 212 and 279m above ground are 450mm thick
solid reinforced concrete slabs, with the roof to the plant
floors being a 400mm thick solid reinforced concrete slab
(except the top plant floor) to provide an acoustic barrier to
the floor immediately above. The building was designed to
British standards, while UBC-977 was used for seismic load
assessment
in
accordance
with
local
authority
requirements. The concrete grades range from 45 to 70MPa
cube strength with a reinforcement grade 460 (fy = 460
MPa) and structural steelwork S355 (fy = 355 MPa).

Finite-element modelling
A three-dimensional finite-element model of the tower and
podium was generated in Etabs5, which included the raft
slab on spring supports to simulate the piles although
the raft weight was not considered for the purpose of
assessing the seismic base shear. An allowance was
made in the section properties for cracking under
ultimate limit state according to UBC-97 and it was
assumed that all loads would be transferred to the
ground through the piles. The spring stiffness for the
piles was based on the pile working load capacity and
the theoretical settlement of the pile under that load,
which was taken from the geotechnical assessment. The
effect of the podium on the lateral movement was
considered by modelling lateral springs at various levels
based on the stiffness of the podium structure.

The belt walls and outrigger walls include large service

openings to allow for air intake and discharge as well as to
allow for ductwork and piping routing.

Extract of three-dimensional finiteelement model of a plant floor

showing core walls, outriggers with
openings and external belt walls

Wind engineering
Wind tunnel testing was carried out by Rowan Williams
Davies & Irwin Inc.9 using a high-frequency force-balance
model.
With wind loads based on a 3s
gust
wind speed of 37.7m/s for open
terrain at 10m height, in
accordance
with measurements at Dubai
International airport between
1983
and 1997. The proximity model
was based on a 575m radius.

Seismic design
Seismic loads used were based on UBC-97 zone
2A in accordance with local authority
requirements. A response spectrum analysis
based on UBC-97 was carried out with
appropriate scale factors used to obtain
member forces and associated drifts. Section
modifiers as per UBC-97 were applied to the
design, that is, 0.7 for uncracked walls and
columns, 0.35 for cracked walls and 0.35 for
beams. Ductile detailing for the coupling beams
using diagonal reinforcement was specified
according to UBC-97, although this is not
required for zone 2A.

Foundation system
The foundation for the tower is a 3m thick piled raft
supported on 1200mm diameter friction piles, which
are approximately 40m long. To mitigate the effect
of the heat of hydration, 50% of the raft cement was
replaced with ground granulated blastfurnace slag
(ggbs). Appropriate concrete cover was provided for
the foundation and perimeter retaining walls to
achieve the intended building design life. The
columns and walls in the podium area are supported
by slabs spanning between pile caps and, to reduce
the slab thickness, tension piles are designed to
resist uplift in the podium basement caused by the
high water table.

Vertical asymmetry
The tower has an inbuilt vertical asymmetry due to one part of the
tower extending 12 floors above the other while connected to one
core throughout the height of the building. It was realized early on
in the design that there could be lateral movement in the building
that would be in excess of sways in a conventional, symmetrically
loaded building. Building movement monitoring was included in
the specification to allow the structural designers to compare
actual movements with those estimated. This required survey
points at each floor, which were monitored by laser surveying
instruments (Leica TPS700) for lateral drift against a fixed
benchmark located at ground level outside the building. Further
points were located at the core and periphery of each floor to
monitor movement due to axial shortening. The results from the
three-dimensional analysis model indicated that the horizontal
gravity load sway would be of the order of 225mm (short term) at
the uppermost floor level. This value is an overestimate as the
model assumes the structure is built and then all loads are applied
instantaneously a phenomenon known as switch-on gravity
which is obviously not realistic and required further investigation.

Long term axial deformation

and differential shortening
As with all tall buildings, it was necessary to estimate the long-term
axial deformation and the differential shortening between the core
and the columns. This deformation has an impact on the design of
connecting elements and also requires adjustments while casting
the floors to ensure that the floors are horizontal. Two approaches
were considered one using the Eurocode 23 and another using the
American Concrete Institute 2091 model. The Eurocode method
does not take into account the relaxation of creep due to the
presence of reinforcement, whereas the ACI model does. This was a
significant factor in this building considering that the columns were
composite and contained significant amounts of reinforcement and
that the walls were heavily reinforced at lower levels. It was
therefore decided to use the ACI method for the assessment. A
computer program was developed based on the procedure outlined
in the ACI as well as that presented by the Portland Cement
Association6.

Cladding
The building facade consists of a unitised cladding and
curtain walling
system, which is manufactured incorporating aluminium,
glass and insulation as a complete module. The vertical
spacing was based on a floor-to-floor height of 4m while
the horizontal spacing was based on a combination of the
structural grid and the widths of offices to achieve a
maximum number of vision bays. A 10mm gap was
provided between each panel for thermal and seismic
movement as well as the long-term movement of the
concrete frame due to creep and shrinkage. The full depth
of the mullions, including the glazing or cladding is
150mm, which left a tolerance of 25mm either way in the
200mm structural depth allowance for cladding fixing.

Podium
The design of the podium was inspired by the inherent angular geometry
of a diamond. The podium comprises an array of eight triangular glass
petals that radiate from the central core. The diamond exchange is
accommodated within the north-eastern petal that juts out over a
terraced water feature stepping down to a lake. The three-storey
podium accommodates a variety of retail spaces and food courts, a
business centre, a health club and the diamond exchange centre. Each
triangular retail petal consists of a steel framed structure with
composite metal deck floor slabs. The diamond exchange centre
comprises profiled metal-deck slabs supported on a grid of steel beams.
These are in turn supported by an exposed steel truss and steel
columns, which are straight or raking (Figure 10). The steel frames are
stabilised by portal action and by the central core of the building to
which they are connected. The ground floor slab is formed by a 140m
diameter stepped floor, which radiates from the central tower to the
perimeter. Close to the tower, the podium is at ground level, gradually
stepping to basement 1level towards tower entrance and basement 2
towards the rear side.

Spire structure
The top of the Almas Tower features an 81m tall spire, which forms
the tip of the building reaching to a height of 360m. The base of the
spire is connected to the tower through a reinforced concrete
upstand wall over a length of 21m, such that the free-standing
length of the spire in one direction is approximately 60m. The spire
has two distinct sections with a step transition approximately two
thirds of the way up. The lower portion is roughly elliptical in shape
and is constructed from a triangulated steel frame with aluminium
cladding. The major and minor axis of the ellipse is 7.4 and 3.4m at
the base respectively. The 23m high upper portion of the spire is of
sheet steel construction. The major and minor axis of the upper
portion is 4.3 and 1.5m at its base respectively. The spire structure
was initially analysed and designed for code calculated static wind
forces. However, due to the slender nature of the spire, it was
realized early on in the design that without additional damping, the
spire would vibrate excessively causing unacceptable fatigue
stresses that could lead to structural failure.

Conclusion
The design of Almas Tower evolved from meeting the
clients high expectations and stringent requirements.
The solution adopted by the design team proved to be
most effective in producing a fl oor usage of the
highest effi ciency. Detailed studies were carried out to
address issues arising from the sway due to vertical
asymmetry of mass. This was overcome by using
simple compensation techniques during construction,
thereby demonstrating that a practical approach can
be successful in addressing such issues. Vortex
shedding suppression devices based on simple
principles were used as temporary measures during
the construction stage to prevent excessive wind
induced movement of the spire.