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MODE OF CONSTRUCTION OF
THE WORLDS TALLEST
BUILDING-
BURJ KHALIFA

Presented by:-Joji Mathew

Civil Engineering Department
Marian Engineering College(TVM)
 Contents
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 Introduction  Wind
 Excavation  Shape
 Casting of the  Buttressed core
structure
 Earthquake
 Elevators and
escalators  Evacuation

 Cladding of the  Environment

tower friendly
 Speed of
construction
 Introduction
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 The Burj Khalifa is the ever built tallest

man made structure.
 This tower rises in the sky to 828m

carrying 162 floors.

 The Burj took 6years for its construction

and was completed in the year 2010.

 For erecting this city in the sky several

new technologies had to be used.

 Excavation
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 The soil stratum of Dubai is very week so they

had to excavate up to 50m deep to get a hard
rock structure
 But the rock that they found was fragile and

saturated with ground water

 So that any hole made

will be cured immediately

 Excavation cont……
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 The engineers filled this with a viscous polymer

slurry
 This pushes the rock and the ground water to the
edges of the boreholes to keep it open
 This slurry is denser than water and liter than
concrete, so that when concrete is pumped the
concrete displaces the fluid and forms the
foundation.
 194 piles were constructed
for avoiding the sinking of
this structure.
 Casting of the structure
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 The casting of the whole structure is mainly

done by two materials
1. Concrete
2. Steel
 Over 30,000 tons of steel were used
 About 250,000 m2 concrete was also used
 The reinforced concrete acts as the
backbone of the whole structure
 Elevators and escalators
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 The Burj can accommodate about 35,000

people at a time
 Consist of 57 elevators and 8 escalators
 The biggest elevator carries about 46 people
at a time
 These elevators travel at a speed of 35km/hr
 The Burj has a service/firemans elevator which
have a capacity to hold about 5,500kg
 And this is the worlds tallest service elevator.
 Cladding of the tower
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 The Burj is claded with high-tech glass which

forms as a curtain wall
 If the whole cladding has to be done with high-
tech glass which will cost about 100 million
dollars
 Test for the cladding against
9 storm
 The cladding should withstand the heavy sand
storms that with in include water and dust
 Prototypes were selected and with the help of
propellers artificially created storm was
allowed to hit the glass panels at
a greater speed
 The glass panels

withstands the storm

up to 75km/hr
 Glass panel
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 The solar contains UV radiations as well as IR

radiations
 So that the glass panel consist of two layers

 The outer layer is coated with a thin layer of

metal so that it reflects the UV radiations
 The inner layer is coated

with thin layer of silver so

that it reflects the IR
radiations
 Glass panel cont…..
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 Arrangement of glass panels in such a manner

will make the building a green house
 The hot air will only be absorbed by the glass
panels and wont allow it to go out
 So that air conditioners
were provided for the
cooling of the air and
fresh air
 Speed of construction
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 As the building has to be built more than half a

km, it had to challenge many factors that
haven't faced by any other building
 Has to be completed with in the short period
limit
 So the time was money
 For erecting such a structure in the sky steel
and glass panels have to be raised
 This was done by cranes
 Cranes
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 The cranes consist of two plates on the two

sides
 It could jump from one floor to the another
 So that they were called the kangaroo cranes
 So as to speed up the construction the RCC
walls was done in a simple and clever
engineering way
 Casting of RCC walls
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 For simplicity and speed the engineers made no.

of steel cages
 These cages were inserted to the formworks that
can be moved easily
 After installation of cages concrete was filled in
these formworks
 Only took 12hrs for the

setting of concrete
 After setting the concrete

the formworks would move

to the next level with in 2hrs
 Concrete used
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 High performance concrete(HPC)

 Low permeability
 High durability
 C80-C60 cube strength concrete was used
 It includes fly ash, Portland cement
 Two largest concrete pumping machines in the
world were used for this purpose
 For reducing cracks due to high temperature
concreting was done only at night
 So that air is cooler and humidity is higher with ice
added to the mix
 Concrete used cont…..
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 The pump needs 630HP to pump about

25000tons of concrete
 It had took about 14mints for reaching the
concrete to the 150th floor
 They completed every
new floor in 3 day
 Wind
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 Every year the storm attacks Dubai

 As the building grows much higher to the sky
the top will be badly affected by the wind
 This causes a sway at the top floors of the
building
 So that they studied many other skyscrapers
 The buildings must be in a definite shape
 Shape
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 They made a study on the Sears tower at

Chicago
 The Sears tower had a layer of

steel, and an another layer of

steel which forms an exoskeleton
to the building
 9 such blocks were used in this

Sears tower in definite shape

 So that the building was made

rock solid
 Shape cont….
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 Giving the Burj a exoskeleton was not a easy

task
 So they designed the Burj in a triangular
shape
 So that this was suitable to deflect the wind to
different ways
 Buttressed core
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 The three wings allow for greater building

height by buttressing one another by a central
core hence it is called buttressed core
structural system
 This buttressed core is a six sided central
piece
 So that it is called a Hexagonal Hub
 Buttressed core cont….
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 This hub is surrounded by the three wings

 These three wings afford the torsional
resistance and the twisting of the tower
 This hub encloses the elevators
 Earthquake
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 The earthquake was one of the most important

factor that had to be challenged by the burj
 Any unknown concept would collapse the
whole structure
 They took the Taipie101 tower for their study
 Taipei 101
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 A year twice China is affected with

earthquakes
 The Taipei 101 was raised up with 36

steel tubes
 They were filled with concrete for their

rigidity
 Taipei 101 cont….
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 These columns were holding

together with outrigger trusses
 So that these elastic bands

would recover the whole

movement occurred to the
building
 Earthquake cont….
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 Providing such bands was not so practical for

Burj
 According to Uniform Building Code(UBC)
,Dubai was classified under a zone 2a
 Moderate seismic activity
 The Burj would resist up to 6 in the Richter
scale
 Because of the massive reinforced concrete
skeleton
 Evacuation
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 The attack against the world trade centre at

sept2001 shows the importance of evacuation
in skyscrapers
 How tall the skyscrapers grow makes the
evacuation much harder
 The Burj is different and have a perfect
evacuation system
 Evacuation cont….
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 The Burj is naturally fire resistant as the concrete

backbone is already fire resistant
 More than that the Burj consist of refuge rooms
 These refuge rooms are made of RCC and fire
proof sheets that resist the heat up to 2hrs
 These refuge rooms has a special supply of air
which pumps through fire resistant pipes
 There are 9 refuge rooms, one in every 30 floors
 The evacuation system
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 The Burj evacuation system mainly consist of

3 components
i. A smoke detector
ii. Water sprinkler
iii. High power fans
 Evacuation system cont….
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 At first the smoke detector detects the smoke if

fired
 The smoke detector then activates the water
sprinkler and then the high speed fans
 As the water is sprinkled the fire gets
extinguished and the high power fans
supplies fresh air by pushing the smoke out
 So that it is perfectly fire safe
 Environment friendly
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Water heating
 The Burj utilizes solar power
 378 panels each with an area of 2.7sq.m were
installed
 These panels have the ability to heat 140,000
lit of water when supplied with just 7hrs of day
light
 This is equal to 32,000KW of energy provided
 Environment friendly
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cont….
Condensate recovery system
 Collects water condensate from the air
conditioning system
 And diverts it to an irrigation tank
 It provides about 15 million gallons of water
per year
 This water is used for irrigation of landscape
around the Burj
 Reduces water related expenses
 Environment friendly
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cont….
Air ventilation
 Air ventilation provided at the top reduces the
energy conception
 Air at the top of the building is cooler, has low
density and relatively humid
 Its ideal for ventilation
 Less energy is required to maintain the
comfortable condition
 Conclusion
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 The Burj Khalifa is one of the unique tallest

building that was built by man
 For rising such a city in the sky several new
techniques have been used
 The buttressed core structural system has made a
great change in the structural system of
skyscrapers
 A strong buttressed core will initiate the height of
the skyscrapers
 The construction of the Burj Khalifa proves that
height doesn't matter any civil engineering
construction.
 References
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 Baker, W.F. and Pawlikowski, J.J. (2009)The

design and construction of the World’s tallest
building-Pushing technology to new
heights, Structural Engineer,Dec., pp. 12-19
 Lee, H.J., Kuchma, D.A., Baker, W., and
Novak, L.C. (2008) Desuign and analysis of
heavily loaded reinforced concrete link beams
for Burj Khalifa, ACI Structural Journal, Vol.
105, No.4, July-Aug., pp.451-459.
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Thankyou