Burj Khalifa in Dubai Engineering Research Assignment (Essay Sample)

Student’s name:
Instructor:
Course name:
Date
Burj Khalifa in Dubai
Introduction
The Burj Khalifa tower is known to be the tallest building in the world. It is in Downtown Burj Dubai, and it is about 830 meters high, covering an area of almost 280 thousand square meters with over 160 floors within the structure. The project began on 6/1/2004 and came to an end on 1/10/2009, but it was officially opened on 4/1/2010 as a project of mixed-use developments in the United Arab Emirates. The government's principal aim of coming up with the building was to attain multiplicity in the country’s economy and also to achieve the international fame of the country worldwide (Goldsworthy 45). The building was designed by the great architect Adrian Smith and the great structural engineer Bill Baker, who together assimilated the pattern of the Islamic architecture to produce a modified design of Burj Khalifa. It as a buttress based design to anchor the extraordinary height of the structure and also an insulating system to cover up the country’s high temperatures in the summer season. Burj Khalifa building is installed with over 50 elevators plus some escalators to convey people at different floors within the building.
Architectural design
The major design idea of the building is a triaxial geometry with a spiraling pattern that mimics the spiraling pattern system of the grand mosque in Samarra with a broad base and a narrow top. Its Y-Shape design allows for natural illumination inside the building during the daytime. The structure has a continuous decreasing trend in the cross-sectional length from floor to floor as it ascends upwards towards the clouds (Kallen 67). It has a core buttress system that is made up of hexagonal base supported with an auxiliary buttress that gives it a tri-axial shape thus anchoring the building firm on the ground. The wall is made of the high-performance concrete with significant strength and stability. The corridors of each floor extend from the central core and ends at the wings of the building with various unique patterns. The building has a spire constructed of structural steel that weighs an average weight of more than 4500 tons while the core pinnacle pipe averages 360tons.
The interior is decorated with artworks that consist of cymbals that are made of bronze and brass alloys resembling all the nations in the whole universe. The insulation mechanism is designed to control the extraordinarily high temperatures during the summer season in Dubai. It is made of extensive reflective glazing reinforced with stainless steel spandrel plates, aluminium, and perpendicular hollow flippers. The cladding process in the outer phase of the structure was done using over 25000 glass panes. The glass work protects or controls the natural heat and light penetrating through into the building. The building is installed with over 59 elevators and escalators conveying people in various floors within the structure at an impressive speed of about 11meters per seconds both upwards and downwards. The building has both the single and double deck elevators. However, the triple deck elevator is still in progress. The elevators are designed using LCD displays to relieve the feeling of monotony during the conveyance period, especially from the ground floor to the topmost floor.
The major framework of the Burj Khalifa building is highly supported with high-performance concrete. During the construction of the uppermost towers, the engineers had to depend on the great work of Putzmeister, who came up with the supersonic concrete pump trailer that could pump the very large amount of concrete mixture over great distance vertically. It was also used to lift the heavy stainless steels to the uppermost floor for the construction of the spire though the very topmost section was constructed using a less heavy stainless steels.
The foundation of Burj Khalifa building was constructed using a large and heavy amount of concrete with heavy and durable stainless steels for reinforcement of the platform. The average amount of concrete used in the construction of the foundation alone was over 40000 square meters with a weight of approximately more than 100000 tons. The foundation consumed more than 190 piles with each pile measuring one and a half meter in cross-sectional length and 45 meters long. According to the parameters used in the construction of the foundation, the statistics show that it averages a total weight of about 500000 tons. The concrete used in the foundation was designed to have a high density with very minimal permeability. The foundation itself has got a highly efficient cathodic protection system that assists in the prevention of the damaging effect from the corrosive and highly reactive chemicals present in the underground water.
The Burj Khalifa building is extensively clustered in that it is designed to have an air conditioned emergency floors at an interval of every 35 floors to safety purposes. The concrete used at each and every floor...