Burj Dubai Project

• Consists of the following

• 160+ storey tower
• Adjacent podium structure
• Separate six storey office annex
• Two-storey pool annex
• Cost: US$20 billion
 Credits
• Architect/Structural/MEP design: Skidmore,
Owings and Merrill LLP, Chicago
• Field supervision, Adopting Architect: Hyder
Consulting Ltd.
• General contractor: Samsung/BeSix/Arabtec
• Foundation contractor: NASA Multiplex
• Developer: Emaar Properties PJSC, Dubai
 Burj Dubai; By numbers
• Height: 818 m; Floors: 160+
• 280,000 sq.m residential and office space and a
Giorgio Armani hotel
• Tower+ Podium: 465,000 sq.m area
• Concrete used : 250,000 cu.m (weight of
110,000 elephants)
• Steel rebars: 35,700 tonnes (may extend over
one fourth perimeter of the world)
• Curtain walls: 83,600 sq.m of glass and 27,900
sq.m of metal( equivalent of 17 soccer fields)
• Taken 22 million man-hours to construct.
Comparison of height with other
well known structures
Comparison of Cross-section
 The triple-lobed footprint was
inspired by the flower Hymenocallis
 Shape of Tower
• Composed of a central hexagonal core with
three lobes (wings) clustered around it.
• As the tower rises, one wing at each tier sets
back in an upward spiraling pattern, decreasing
the cross section of the tower as it reaches
toward the sky. There are 26 terraces.
• At the top, the central core emerges and is
sculpted to form a finishing spire.
• Viewed from above or from the base, the form
also evokes the Onion domes of Islamic
architecture.
 Structural System
• A Y-shaped floor plan provides high-performance and
maximizes views of the Persian Gulf.
• Has a “buttresses-core” of HPC walls
• Each wing buttresses the other via a six sided central
core or hexagonal hub. This central core provides the
torsional resistance.
• Corridor walls extend up to the end of wing, with hammer
head walls at the end.
• The perimeter columns are connected at mechanical
floors in order to resist lateral loads.
• Three storey height outriggers tie the tower at different
heights periodically.
 Wind Engineering Design
• The upward spiraling set back shaping has the
effect of confusing the wind.
• As the wind encounters a different shape at
each new tier the wind vortices never gets
organized.
• At its tallest point, the tower sways a total of
1.5 m
• The first mode has a period of 11.3 sec, the
perpendicular lateral sidesway second
mode10.2 sec, and the torsional fifth mode 4.3
sec.
 Extensive tests were carried at the Boundary layer wind
tunnels at Guelph, Ontario, Canada from May 2003 to Sept
05, which resulted in the shape of the tower with much
reduced wind forces
The construction started on 21 September 2004
 Foundation Details
• 3.7 m thick pile supported raft-12500 m3
of C50 SCC concrete
• Raft supported by 194 bored cast-in-place
Piles of 1.5 m dia and app. 43 m long
• Capacity of each pile 3000 tonnes
• Piles made of C60 SCC concrete placed
by tremie method utilizing polymer slurry
13th May 2007: Sets record for vertical concrete pumping on any
building at 452 m; Previous record: 449.2 m for Taipei 101
On 12 September 2007, at
555.3 m , became the
world's tallest freestanding
structure, surpassing the
CN Tower in Toronto.
On 1 September 2008, with 688 m surpassed the tallest man-made structure ever
built, the Warsaw Radio Mast in Konstantynów, Poland
 Concrete in the Tower
• High-performance concrete with a mix designed to
provide a low-permeability and high-durability.
• C80 to C60 cube strength for wall and column using
portland cement, fly ash, and local aggregates.
• The C80 concrete has a specified Young’s Modulus of
43,800 N/mm2 at 90 days.
• Two of the largest concrete pumps in the world were
used to deliver concrete to heights over 600 m in a
single stage.
• To reduce the cracks, ice was added to the mixture and
it was poured at night when the air is cooler and the
humidity is higher.
It set the record in
occurred expenses
too:
4.2 billion Dollars.
 Three primary self-
climbing Favco tower
cranes are located
adjacent to the
central core, with
each continuing to
various heights as
required.
The crane operators had no acrophobia.
 The cranes were modified to lift the extreme
lengths of cables and 25 tonne payloads, at high
speeds.
At the upper level the Earth's curvature and rotation
is detectable.
A photo from last year…
A view from the tower. In fair weather a person
in the Observation Deck can see as far away as
80 km!
…and at dust storm.
On a clear day the tip of the spire can be seen by
a person 95 km away.
 Other details and technology
• The tower is serviced by five separate
mechanical zones, 30 floors apart over the
height.
• Doka’s SKE 100 automatic self-climbing
formwork was used for the construction of walls
• High-speed (120-m/minute), high-capacity
(3,200-kg) construction hoists were used to
transport workers and materials to the required
heights.
• a specialized GPS monitoring system has been
developed to monitor the verticality of the
structure
A high performance exterior cladding system was used to withstand the

extreme temperatures during the summer months in Dubai.

 Elevators
• The building is expected to hold up to 35,000
people at any one time, so transportation as well
as evacuation of the building is an important
consideration. 
• Otis Elevators has installed 58 elevators, which
include twenty Gen2 flat belt elevators and two
double deck observation deck elevators.
• The observation deck elevators and can carry
42 people at a time and travel up to 18 m/sec. 
• Some elevators are programmed to allow
controlled evacuation during fire or emergency
situations.
 Window Cleaning
• A horizontal track has been installed on the
exterior at three levels 40, 73 and 109, for
window cleaning.
• Each track holds a 1.5 tonne bucket machine
which moves horizontally and then vertically
using heavy cables.
• The top of the spire, however, is reserved for
specialist window cleaners, who brave the
heights and high winds dangling by ropes to
clean the top panels
 Chilled water Cooling System
• A massive ice-chilled water system is installed
as an integral component of the building air-
conditioning. 
• The Trane Corporation of New Jersey designed
and supplied the centrifugal chillers and other
system equipment for the tower.  
• The ice-based thermal storage type of chilling
system will be the first in the Middle East. 
There is an artificial lake and a
fountain in front of the tower.
The fountain’s jets are computer controlled and the cost of construction
This is the World’s largest musical fountain.The curtain of water is 150 m high
and 250 m long. See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=m7_zeMC6ZKM&feature=related
The jets are illuminated by 6600 electric bulbs and 50 colored
light projectors.
 The Burj Dubai will be
opened on 4th Jan 2010.
But the occupation could
be deferred for years due
to economic crisis, and the
decline of tourism.
 References:
• http://www.burjofdubai.com/burj-dubai-arc
hitecture-and-design/
• http://www.burjdubaiskyscraper.com/photo
s.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Dubai
• Baker, W.F. and Pawlikowski, J.J, The
design and construction of the World's
tallest building-Pushing technology to new
heights, Structural Engineer, Dec. 09, pp.
12-19