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BURJ KHALIFA, DUBAI

828 -SKIDMORE, OWINGS AND MERRILL
541.3
BURJ KHALIFA, DUBAI
Soaring 828 meters above the metropolis of Dubai, the Burj Khalifa is the world’s tallest building.
The design for the 162-story tower combines local cultural influences with cutting-edge technology
to achieve high performance in an extreme desert climate.

The centerpiece of a large mixed-use development, the Burj Khalifa contains offices, retail space,
residential units, and a Giorgio Armani hotel. A Y-shaped floor plan maximizes views of the Arabian
Gulf. At ground level, the skyscraper is surrounded by green space, water features, and pedestrian-
friendly boulevards.

FIRM
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is a global architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm. It
was founded in Chicago in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings; in 1939 they were joined
by engineer John O. Merrill. The firm opened its second office in New York City in 1937, and has
since expanded all over the world, with offices in San Francisco (1937), Los Angeles, Washington,
D.C., London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai and Dubai.

With a portfolio spanning thousands of projects across 50 countries, SOM is one of the most
significant architectural firms in the world.

Notable for its role as a pioneer of modernist architecture in America and for its groundbreaking
work in skyscraper design, SOM has designed some of the world's most significant architectural
and urban projects including several of the tallest buildings in the world.

SOM's multidisciplinary practice works across a range of scales and project types, providing
services in Architecture, Building Services/MEP Engineering, Digital Design, Graphics, Interior
Design, Structural Engineering, Civil Engineering, Sustainable Design and Urban Design & Planning

INTRODUCTION
LOCATION

UAE

DUBAI

The Burj Khalifa, known as the Burj Dubai

prior to its inauguration in 2010, is a
skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab
Emirates.

The site is accessed by Sheikh N

Mohammed bin Rashid Blvd road.
BURJ KHALIFA, DUBAI
The site also has an artificial water body.

CLIMATE
The climate of Dubai, the most populous of the United Arab Emirates, is subtropical desert, with
very mild or pleasantly warm winters, and scorchingly hot summers, when the combination of
temperature and humidity makes the heat really oppressive.

In fact, in summer, the wind usually blows directly from the sea, bringing moisture from the
Persian Gulf.

The average temperature ranges from 19.5 °C (67.5 °F) in January to 36.5 °C (98 °F) in
August.

Every so often, from December to February, and more rarely in March, there can be some cool
days, with lows around 10/12 °C (50/54 °F) and highs around 16/18 °C (61/64 °F).

Precipitation is poor, and amounts to 100 millimeters (4 inches) per year; most of the rainfall
occurs from December to March or April. The rains usually occur in the form of showers, brief
but intense. In summer, it never rains.

LOCATION AND CLIMATE

CONTEXT

Dubai Opera

Armani Hotel, Dubai

Burj Park by EMAAR

Duaai Mall

Dubai Fountain

The Old town island

by EMAAR

The skyscaper is surrounded by many residential and commercial structures

The site can be accessed by the road from north-west ie; by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Blvd
road. The site is covered by a fountain and a park in the south west which is inside the site and
accessed by the public.
The fountain show has a stretch of almost 200 meters.
On the east of the skyscraper there is a Armani hotel, on the east side of th site it has an dubai
opera.
There is a residential area named old town island on the south of the skyscraper

CONCEPT
The primary design concept of the tower is an organic form with
tri-axial geometry and Spiraling growth Additionally, traditional
Islamic forms were utilized to enrich the tower’s design, and to
incorporate visual references to the culture and history of the
surrounding region. As such, the floor plan of the tower consists
of a tri-axial, “Y” shaped plan, formed by having three separate
wings connected to a central core.
Burj Khalifa Designed by SOM under the leadership of architect
Adrian Smith.
According to the architect Adrian Smith, the greatest source of
inspiration for Burj Khalifa’s form and geometry was a native
desert flower, highly popular and widely cultivated in Dubai, and
the filigree patterns of traditional Islamic architecture. Named
“Hymeocallis,” it is a type of lily, is native to tropical Central America. Its flower structure is said to
have provided the idea for the shape of the Burj Dubai's ground plan

CONTEXT AND CONCEPT

 Top of the Pinacle
Top of the Final

TIER 20

TIER 19

TIER 18

TIER 16
CORPORATE

TIER 14
SUITES

TIER 12

TIER 11
RESIDENCE

TIER 10
PRIVATE

TIER 8
RESIDENCE

TIER 6

TIER 3
ARMANI
HOTEL

TIER 0

ZONEING by ELEVATION
PODIUM CONCOURSE

5 5

1. Office Pavillion
2. Lobby 2 4
3. Hotel resturent
3 1
4. Ball room 3
5. Parking 8
6. Indoor pool 6
7. Loding dock
8. Prefunction 10
9. Central plant
10. Emergency generator
PODIUM LEVEL 1

5
1. Hotel Pavillion 9
2. Spa 6
3. Hotel prefunction 4 3
4. Hotel resturent
5. Ballroom drop off 2
6. Office annex entry
7. Office tenant
8. Hotel 7
9. Lobby Bar

ZONEING by PLAN
TYPICAL HOTEL FLOOR

6
5
4

2
1

1. Studio
2. Guest room
3. Suite
4. Dinning room
5. Living room
6. bedroom
TYPICAL RESIDEINTAL FLOOR

3
1. One bedroom unit
2. Two bed room unit
3. Four bedroom unit

ZONEING by PLAN
STRUCTURAL CHALLENGES

• Site Conditions
• Tower Foundations
• Gravity Analysis
• Height of Tower
• Earthquake Resistance
• Wind Engineering
• Construction Materials, Methods and
Technology

STRUCTURAL SYSTEM

• ‘Y’ shaped floor plan provides higher performance

• The shape and the upward setbacks help the structure to reduce
the wind
• Buttressed Core System. Each wing buttresses the other through a
hexagonal central core.
• The central core has a higher resistance towards the torsional
resistance. 29 STRUCTURAL SYSTEM Corridor walls that extend
from the central core to the end of the wing are thickened by
hammer walls.
• These walls resist the wind shears and moments
• There are perimeter columns connected to the mechanical floors.
• The connection between the perimeter columns and the mechanical
floors is provided by means of outrigger walls. This help to
resists higher wind loads laterally.

STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
 SITE
• High level of groundwater up to 2m below surface.
• Extremely corrosive groundwater, containing approximately three
times the sulfates and chlorides as sea water.
• The ground below Burj Khalifa consists of a 3 to 4 meter layer of
sand.
• Below this are weak sandstones and limestones which aren’t suitable
to support the structure

SOLUTION
• Implementation of specialized waterproofing systems
• Increased concrete cover to reinforcement
• Addition of corrosion inhibitors to the concrete mix
• Applying a stringent crack control raft design criteria
• Lower permeable concrete cover to the rebar

SITE CONDITIONS
• Pile-supported Raft foundation
• The solid reinforced concrete raft is 3.7 meters thick
• The Tower raft is supported by 194 bored cast-in-place piles.
• The piles are 1.5 meter in diameter and approximately 50meters long,
with a capacity of 3,000 tonnes each
• Skin friction piles, where the weight of the skyscraper is carried on the
friction of the pile, the side of the pile.

FOUNDATION

TOWER RAFT
FOUNDATION
OUTLINE

1.2 MTR

PLAN

TOWER FOUNDATIONS
• Massive structure thus, high loads
• The structural system can be described as a "buttressed" core
The result is a tower that is extremely stiff laterally and torsionally.
• SOM applied a rigorous geometry to the tower that aligned all the
common central core, wall, and column elements.
• Gravity load management is also critical as it has direct impact on the
overall efficiency and performance of the tower and it should be
addressed at the early design stage, during the development and
integration of the architectural and structural design concept.
• The limitations on the wall thicknesses (500-600mm) of the center
core and the wing walls thickness (600mm) allowed, art of working
with concrete, the gravity load to flow freely into the center corridor
Spine web walls (650mm) to the hammer head walls and nose
columns for maximum resistance to lateral loads.

GRAVITY ANALYSIS
AXIAL FORCE DIGRAM SHEAR DIGRAM MOMENT DIGRAM
 EARTHQUAKE RESISTANCE
• Dubai is not a seismic zone and there is no chance of having an
earthquake over 5.5.
• A massive reinforced concrete skeleton which can withstand
earthquakes of up to 6 on the Richter scale.
• Outrigger walls connect the perimeter columns to the interior walling,
thus, they are able to contribute support for the lateral resistance of
the structure
• Exceptionally stiff in both lateral and torsional directions.

WIND ENGINEERING
• Due to the height and slenderness, wind becomes a dominant
factors in the structural design
• To determine the wind loading on the main structure, wind tunnel
tests were undertaken
• The stepping and shaping of the tower has the effect of “confusing”
the wind.
• Wind vortices never get organized over the height of the building
because at each new tier the wind encounters a different building
shape.
• Under lateral wind loading, the building deflections are well below
commonly used criteria

EARTHQUAKE RESISTANCE
WIND ENGINEERING
THE SPIRE

• The crowning touch of Burj

Khalifa is its telescopic
spire comprised of more
than 4,000 tons of
structural steel.
• The spire was constructed
from inside the building and
jacked to its full height of
over 200 metres (700 feet)
using a hydraulic pump.
• Creates a sense of
completion for the
landmark.
• Also houses
communications equipment.

CLADDING OF THE TOWER

• The Burj is claded with high-tech
glass which forms as a curtain
wall.
• The exterior cladding is
comprised of reflective glazing
with aluminum and textured
stainless steel spandrel panels
and stainless steel vertical
tubular fins.
• If the whole cladding has to be
done with high-tech glass which
will cost about 100 million
dollars.

NON STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS

GLASS PANNEL
• The outer layer of panel is coated with a thin layer of metal so that it
reflects the UV radiations
• The inner layer of panel is coated with thin layer of silver so that it
reflects the IR radiations.
• The exterior cladding is comprised of reflective glazing with aluminum
and textured stainless steel spandrel panels and stainless steel vertical
tubular fins.
• Close to 26,000 glass panels, each individually hand-cut, were used in
the exterior cladding of Burj Khalifa.

SPEED OF CONSTRUCTION AND CRANES

• For erecting such a structure in the sky
steel and glass panels have to be
raised
• 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

NON STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS

EVACUATION AND FIRE SAFETY
• 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 Burj fire safety system mainly consist of 3 components
i. A smoke detector
ii. Water sprinkler
iii. High power fans
• As the water is sprinkled the fire gets extinguished and the high
power fans supplies fresh air by pushing the smoke out.

ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLY
Water heating
Air ventilation
• The Burj utilizes solar power
• Air ventilation provided at the top
• 378 panels each with an area
reduces the energy consumption
of 2.7sq.m were installed
• Air at the top of the building is
• These panels have the ability
cooler, has low density and
to heat 140,000 lit of water
relatively humid
when supplied with just 7hrs
• Its ideal for ventilation
of day light. This is equal to
• Less energy is required to
32,000KW of energy provided
maintain the comfortable condition
.
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
CONCLUSION
• A successful collaboration between the requirements of
structural systems, wind engineering, and architectural
aesthetics and function
• The Tower represents a significant achievement in terms of
utilizing the latest design, material, and construction
technology and methods, in order to provide an efficient,
rational structure, to rise to heights never before seen.

Presented by Aakash Rajpurohit

USN:-2IG17AT001
SUB:- Building structures vi
BURJ KHALIFA

828

TALLEST SKYSCRAPER