A rticle

Burj Al-Arab, UAE

Structural Steel Construction For
A Mega Project
By Dato’ A K Nathan, Managing Director, Shin Eversendai Sdn Bhd

I
n recent years, all over the world,
the construction industry is
emerging very rapidly both in
engineering and technology, and
contributing significantly to economic
development. In the later part of the
past century, there has been extensive
usage of steel in the construction
industry and steel explored much more
possibilities to substitute other
conventional materials.

With today’s structural steel framing,

grace, art and function can come
together in almost limitless ways; it
offers new solutions and opportunities,
allowing architects to stretch their
imagination and actually create some of
the most challenging structures they
have designed in their minds.

Structural steel has entered a new era.

Today it provides not only strength to
buildings but also beauty. Steel is not
only being used to provide a stable
framework for a structure but in many
cases is also chosen for its aesthetic
appearance.
Eversendai have had the good fortune
to be involved in steel structure
projects of diverse types one of which
was The Burj Al Arab. It will demonstrate
the versatility of steel for various
applications and also illustrate the
various complexities:-
Designed to resemble a billowing sail,
one of the most fascinating, majestic,
wonder structures in the world, the
Burj Al Arab soars to a height of 321m,
Burj Al Arab
dominating the Dubai coastline. This
all-suite hotel reflects the finest that
the world has to offer. An architectural
marvel, it is an engineering excellence
for the 15 th tallest building in the
world.
It is the world’s tallest hotel structure.
This project has become Eversendai’s
signature project and it has paved the
way for Eversendai’s entry into the
Middle East’s booming construction
market as a specialist structural steel
contractor. Now Eversendai is
dominating their presence in the
Middle East.
The Burj Al Arab means “Tower of the
Arabs” is situated at Dubai, United
Arab Emirates, designed by Mr
Thomas Wills Wright. It stands in the
sea, 280m away from the beach in the
Persian Gulf on a man made island
connected to the main land by a
private curving bridge. It has access by
Land, Sea and Air.

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It is one of the most fascinating,
complex and challenging project ever
undertaken by Eversendai.
The structure is a standing example for
the quote “Architect’s Dream, Engineer’s
Night Mare”.
Steel is the best-opted material for this
building due to its flexibility and
constructability.
The Burj Al Arab building is made of 28
storeys of split levels (56 storey) with
100,000 m 2 floor area, 60000 m3 of
concrete, 9,000 ton of reinforcing steel,
12,000 ton of structural steelworks,
80000 m2 of cladding, 10000 m2 of teflon
- coated fiber glass cloth and sits on 250
piles of 1.5m in size, 45m under the sea,
the piles rely on friction as there is only
piles embedded in sand to hold the
building up.
Construction of the Burj Al Arab hotel
began in1994, and its doors were
opened to guests in December,1999.
The top is the mast and below it is the
helipad, and extending from the other
side of the hotel, over the ocean, is a
restaurant supported by a cantilever
structure. A remarkable element of its
architecture is the outer beachward
steel wall of the atrium, which is covered
Hybrid V shape structure
with a woven, Teflon-coated fiber glass
cloth. The Burj al-Arab features the
tallest atrium lobby in the world
standing at 180m.
This Burj Al Arab building is a hybrid V
shape structure constructed in concrete
up to 209 m and blended with structural
steel creating an impressive
engineering master piece. This V-
shaped frame wraps around the V
reinforced concrete tower containing
the hotel rooms and lobbies. The two
structures connect along a shored,
reinforced concrete spine at the base of
the V, and at two points along the
curving atrium wall.
Ninety percent of the steel structures
constructed were outside the building
and was potentially dangerous to erect.
Three self-climbing tower cranes with a
maximum lift capacity of 64 tons at 8.0
meters radius were used. Some of the
embedment weighed as high as 60
tons.
About 100 tons of electrodes were
burned and the welding defect ratio
was less then 1%.
The Burj Al Arab does not have ordinary
rooms; rather it is divided into 202
duplex suites with split levels. The
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smallest suite occupies an area of 169 sq
m, and the largest one covers 780 sq m.
It is one of the most expensive hotels in
the world to stay in. The cost of staying
in a suite begins at US$1,000 per night
and increases to over US$15,000 per
night; the Royal Suite is the most
expensive, at US$28,000 per night.
We are proud to say that this project
was the major break through for
Eversendai Engineering in Middle East
region. The Project was been awarded
to Eversendai purely based on its
construction methodology, capability
and reliability. Eversendai scope
includes the site assembly, alignment,
welding and erection of structural steel
works.
Total Steel works are phased into
Exoskeleton Rear leg, Horizontals,
Diagonals, Rear Brace Frame, Helipad,
Sky Restaurant, Atrium and the Mast :-
Exoskeleton Rear leg Erection
The exoskeleton is made up of two legs
on both sides of the building starting
from the ground level to 273 meters
and connected to the front legs starting
from 208m. The total weight of the
structure is about 2,800 tons. The
structure was made of two build up H
sections of 1.8 metre wide by 4.5 metre
deep plate girders (inner and outer legs)
connected by a lattice braced members
and segmented to 40 ton capacity 12m
in length to create the gentle curve in
concurrence with the building edge
developing the shape of a sail.
The assembled segment were lifted and
erected in position using the tower
cranes from ground floor to top, one
over another using specially designed
lifting lugs with 20 ton chain hoists in
the pre-determined lifting location to
lift the segment in required angle.
After each segment were erected,
temporary struts were introduced to tie
back the rear leg to the core wall to
A rticle
Framework
maintain alignment until the
Exoskeleton grows to the next point of
permanent connection and then
connected permanently with the Link
Stud weighing about 10 tons to the
concrete core. There were three Link
studs on each side of the building,
fixing at three points for the entire
length of 273 metre Exoskeleton to the
diagonal brace and horizontal brace
point and continued erection of the
segment only after the erection of
diagonals and horizontals and finally
connecting to the front legs starting
from 208m.
All exoskeleton are lifted in
predetermined angles adjusted by
chain blocks, hooked on to the crane
and lifted in segments. All the joints are
of full penetration welding and
inspected by ultrasonic test.
Platforms were fitted at each joint for
welding and other related works
Alignment was carried out using
electronic digital total station located at
three different fixed locations, all
surveying are done very early in the
morning to get a more accurate reading,
keeping in mind the movement of the
structure due to thermal effects which
generally develops deflection.
Rear Brace Frame same process of erection to complete
the three portions of X rear braces in
The two cores on the rear side of the the building.
building are 40m apart and connected
by huge cross bracings of fabricated Diagonals
box sections called the rear braces.
The diagonals are of huge tubular
The box sections were brought into the triangular truss geometry having the
site in transportable segments. The maximum cross section at the middle
cross sections of the boxes are 2.2m by length and merged as one member at
1.4m and made of from 25mm to 40 the ends. The Diagonal vary from 76m
mm thick plates. The box sections are to 90m in length and weigh 160 to 180
assembled and welded at the ground ton. The Diagonal connects with a
level by the side the building. 300mm diameter pin connection to
the core-wall and the Rear-leg
This brace ties both the cores together structure. There are six diagonals
to give stability to the structure. The erected at different levels on both side
total tonnage of this part alone is 1600 of the building.
tons. The shape of the Rear Brace is
similar to “X “are erected in segments. These diagonals are transported as a
All the joints are of full penetration single fabricated piece from the
welding. fabrication shop 15 km away by special
self propelled long trailers.
These rear braces form as X of three
portions for the whole building. The Strand jacks supported by Cat heads
length of one brace was around 60m in were connected to the building to
one direction from one side of the execute the lifting of the Diagonals
bottom embedment to the upper and Horizontals. Utmost care was
embedment of the other side of the taken to ensure that the measurement
core, it was spliced into three pieces. length between the core and the
The first piece was about 24m and exoskeleton rear leg so that the
weighs about 50 tons and was lifted by diagonals with pin connection can be
two tower cranes as a tandem lift and connected with ease.
erected between core embedment
from one side and the another end
rested on the temporary lattice girder
trusses running between cores to
support the rear brace segmental
erection. Once these two 24mts braces
were erected then the X of 12m length
of 52 tons was erected by two tower
cranes as tandem lift supported by the
second layer of temporary lattice
girder truss, which was erected
between cores, the whole rear brace is
in inclined towards the inside of the
building. After all welding, touch up
inspections been carried out, all the
temporary platforms, scaffolds and the
three lattice girder trusses were
removed from its position and re –
erected to the upper portion of the
rear braces location to continue the Front view of Burj Al Arab
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A rticle
Horizontals
The horizontal weighting about 200 tons
connects the core wall to the
exoskeleton rear leg. This structure was
assembled in one piece in the assembly
yard near the project side. The
Horizontals were transported by long
special self-propelled trailers to the
erection site.
They had to be erected between two
fixed points so utmost care was taken to
measure the length between the core
and the exoskeleton rear leg.
Horizontal were erected by strand
jacking method similar to Diagonals,
using the same cat heads platforms.
Once the horizontal reached its
determined elevation, then it was slide
towards the building and placed to its
position connected with bolts and
welding.
The strand jacks and the cat head
platforms were removed from its
position and kept ready for the next cycle
of operation. Once cat heads and strands
were removed then the Exoskeleton
typical erection sequence was carried
out up to its level to the next diagonal
and horizontal fixing point and then
stopped to continue diagonal and
horizontal strand jacking operation.
Helipad Structure
This structure is at 212m level at the rear
side of the building, weights about 330
tons made up of steel trusses and 20mm
thick plates. Two props of 1m diameter
circular steel pipes, forming an inverted
V shape, tapered at 30º to the vertical and
tied back to the center core by a 40m
long spine truss weighing 120 tons,
support the total Helipad structure.
Sky Restaurant Structure
The 350 ton structural steel sky
Restaurant was one of the most complex
and potentially dangerous structures
to erect. The box girders cantilever
out for about 30m from the main core
wall of the building connected to
about 200 tons of embedment. The
restaurant is having a floor size of 70m
x 25m. The total structure is built up
on eight cantilevered box sections
and two end trusses at 200m above
the ground level. The beauty of the
restaurant is that it over looks the sea.
One of the highlights is, two 30m long
girders had to be erected at 200m
level but the crane did not have the
lifting capacity so we had to split the
girders into halves and joint up in the
air with full penetration welding, it
was a real challenge and Eversendai
took it up and performed beyond
everyone’s expectation in a record
duration of 40 days.
Mast
The mast is about 104mts long, only
54m was braced in between
Exoskeleton support legs starting from
208m level on the core wall and the
balance cantilevers vertically 50m way
above the Exoskeleton.
The overall mast was erected in
segments of average 30 ton weight
matching the tower crane capacity. The
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mast is in oval shape of 2.5m x 5m at the
bottom and gradually decreases to 2.5
x 2m at top. All the segments were
bolted inside by ring plate flange
connections. All the segments had
inside arrangements of permanent
ladders and interval platforms to
facilitate access and maintenance.
The first segment of the mast was
erected after the Exoskeleton was
erected on the trusses which run
between two Exoskeleton legs in
horizontal plane.
There were manholes at periodic
intervals, through that workers had
access to go and come out from the
mast to the nearby Exoskeleton
temporary scaffolding arrangement.
Temporary Safety exhaust fans were
introduced inside the mast to have air
circulation to workers.
Before the mast erections coming to
end with the use of the tower crane, the
other two cranes were dismantled
except the crane near to mast.
Finally the third crane was dismantled
by derrick crane. After complete
dismantling of tower crane, derrick crane
was dismantled manually and lowered
from the roof top by winches. MBJ