Burj khalifa construction time: 48 monthsThe original construction program is very tight.

To complete the project within 48 months, Samsung, Besix, ArabtechJoint Venture (SBAJV) established thefollowing strategic approach:Achieve a three (3) day-cycle for structural works.Develop optimum transportation systems with large capacity high speed equipment.Utilize optimum formwork system to accommodate various building shapes along the building height. 29. Technologies used to achieve 3-day cycleThe tower consists of more than 160 floors & to be completed within a very tight schedule Hence, the following key construction technologies were incorporated to achieve the 3-day cycle set for the concrete works:Auto Climbing formwork system (ACS).Rebar pre-fabrication.High performance concrete suitable for providing high strength, high durability requirement, high modulus, and pumping.Advanced concrete pumping technology.Simple drop head formwork system that can be dismantled and assembled quickly with minimum labor requirement.Column/Wall proceeding method, part of ACS formwork system. 30. Sequences of construction 31. Major equipmentsThe process of selecting the right equipment to ensure delivery of materials and workers effectively and efficiently is an art in its own right. Selecting the optimal equipment and vertical transportation system for construction requires ongoing analysis and constantmodifications due to the dynamic nature of the project during its construction life. summary of the equipment used Tower cranesTower main hoistsConcrete pumping equipmentsThe Burj Khalifa project is another step forward in meeting the technological challenges of future construction.

Challenge
For the Burj Khalifa project, the SOM team consisted of more than 65 people, including architects, structural and MEP engineers, and administration personnel. Origins
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All systems go for Burj Khalifa launch 10,000 fireworks effects to mark Burj Dubai opening Tall order for Burj Khalifa cleaning crew Keeping the Burj Dubai site safe for workers Burj offers amazing experience "I was involved from the very beginning. Actually, I went to the interview with the developer back in March 2003," Baker tells Gulf News. "With the rest of the design team, the architects and the mechanical engineers, we worked on how to put this building together, how it should be made and how it should be shaped. My team coordinated with the other teams so that all the pipes fit, all the plumbing fits, the electrical connections fit and all the other things fit. We had a very long series of intense coordination." Baker added that there was no "one" biggest challenge in implementing the project. What they had was a series of challenges.

"Basically, the first four years were the most intense while the designing started in early 2007," recalls Baker. "Also, understanding how it could be efficiently and economically built was a challenge." Another major challenge was understanding the wind and how the building reacted to it. SOM did a series of testing in coordination with different architects, engineers and consultants. For a building of this height and slenderness, wind forces and the resulting motions in the upper levels become dominant factors in the structural design. Wind tunnel programme An extensive programme of wind tunnel tests and other studies were undertaken under the direction of Dr Peter Irvin of Rowan William Davies and Irwin's (RWDI) boundary layer wind tunnels in Guelph, Ontario. "Early in the project, we thought we would allow for a damper if one needed to be built; so we set a cross at an area at the top of the building where we could put a damper, but it looks like we don't need it because we are comfortably below the criteria. The numbers are so low that movement may not be perceptible at all, even in a big storm," says Baker. A damper is essentially a device that helps buildings withstand the force exerted by the wind or by seismic activity. Among other things, the wind tunnel programme helped determine the impact of the different forces acting on the building, simulated the dynamic behaviour of the building, measured localised pressures, and established a statistical model of the wind climate for the project area. The Burj Khalifa's foundation is not very different from much smaller conventional buildings. The way the tower spreads as it nears its base spreads the load over a larger area. Design-wise, Burj Khalifa is just one large, extruded structure that has been trimmed to form its shape. To support the unprecedented height of the building, the engineers developed a new structural system called the buttressed core', which consists of a hexagonal core reinforced by three buttresses that form the Y' shape. This structural system enables the building to support itself laterally and keeps it from twisting. Burj Khalifa is expected to hold up to 35,000 people at any given time. Since current elevator technology would not permit a single elevator to travel the entire height of the building, the only means of serving all floors of this structure was to design a transfer system, connecting elevators serving separate sections of the building. Elevator system The building utilises high-speed, non-stop shuttle elevators bringing passengers to sky lobby floors where they transfer to local elevators serving the floors in between.

Burj Khalifa will have 58 elevators and 8 escalators, which include 20 Gen2 flat belt elevators and two double deck observation deck cabs with a capacity for 12-14 people per cab. Travelling at 10 metres per second, they will have the world's longest travel distance from lowest to highest stop. The building service/fireman's elevator will have a capacity of 5,500 kilograms and will be the world's tallest service elevator. Burj Khalifa will also be the first high-rise building to contain controlled evacuation elevators for emergency situations. The tallest tower in the world will also have the world's highest elevator installation The spire maintenance elevator situated inside a rod at the very top of the building. Water system The Burj Khalifa's water system will supply an average of about 946,000 litres of water per day. At the peak cooling times, the tower will require approximately 10,000 tonnes of cooling per hour, which is equivalent to the capacity provided by 10,000 tonnes (22.4 million lbs or 10.2 million kg) of melting ice in one day. The tower will also have a condensate collection system, which will use the hot and humid outside air, combined with the cooling requirements of the building and will result in a significant amount of condensation of moisture from the air. The condensed water will be collected and drained into a holding tank located in the basement car park. This water will then be pumped into the site irrigation system for use on the tower's landscape plantings. This system will provide about 15 million gallons of supplemental water per year, equivalent to nearly 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Interiors On the architectural concept and interiors of Burj Khalifa, Baker said that the building's design incorporates cultural and historical elements particular to the region. The Y-shaped plan is ideal for residential and hotel usage, with the wings allowing maximum outward views and inward natural light, he added. The design of the Burj Khalifa is derived from the geometries of the desert flower and the patterning systems embodied in Islamic architecture. When asked about how he thinks the public will react to the architectural work Baker said: "Once the Burj Khalifa is completely cleaned on the outside and the stainless steel and the glass catches the light, it will look like a torch in certain times of the day. It's very majestic." Local influences

"We knew that the people who will be occupying this building will be coming from all over the world. So we needed to come up with a design and an approach that would be appealing to a broad range of tastes," says Nada Andric, Project Interiors Designer and Associate Director at SOM. In addition, we had to consider the geometry of the building and the influences of the local, regional culture." Andric said that they drew a lot of inspiration from the elements that are important to Dubai. Water is a recurring element in the interiors; right at the entry lobby, a pool has been built with a bridge that leads to interior lobby where another water-themed element is introduced - a fountain. "This being the premier residence of people from all over the world, we also felt that the materials we use for the designs must exude quality and luxury," said Andric, adding that they have sourced around four to five very precious materials that were used in the interiors of the building.

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Challenges & Innovations

Building a skyscraper poses challenges that test the mind of any engineer. Burj Khalifa stands a whopping 2,723 feet in the air making it the tallest building in the world. However, this was not accomplished without overcoming several major engineering design obstacles. In order to design such a complex and outstanding structure, many records in physical accomplishments and innovahttps://sites.google.com/site/burjkhalifa207sp/challengestions had to be shattered. The sheer height of the structure posed many challenges for engineers constructing the Burj Khalifa. These challenges caused engineers to think with great creativity and ingenuity to accomplish a truly remarkable feet. Here are some of the challenges and innovations that the designers of Burj Khalifa overcame and engineered:

WIND As with any tall building, wind plays a major factor in the construction and design process. In order to begin building, the design team of Burj Khalifa conducted over 40 wind tunnel tests. These tests were intended to determine the behavior of the wind in Dubai itself and the amount of stress that the wind would place on the building. Structural analysis models were built in the computer to determine the pressure of the wind placed on the building and the reaction that the building would have to the specific climate of Dubai. These tests also included determining the challenges the wind would pose on the construction process itself. In order to build the Burj

Khalifa, tower cranes were placed very high in the air, which obviously can be extremely dangerous. The wind tunnel tests ran before the construction helped to determine how to implement these cranes into the construction process. Wind force on the tower was one of the critical stressors considered in the design and features implemented into the towers structure. The overall shape of the tower if looking from above resembles the letter Y; this three-legged structure was engineers solution for the intense wind conditions the tower would face. The center of the tower is a stiff hexagonal-shaped core. Each of the three wings of the structure is buttressed by the others through this central core. Engineers spent months in wind tunnels with scale models perfecting this Y shaped design. Wind could strike the tower from any one direction and the opposing leg of the Y would remain unstressed.

"Burj Khalifa Wind Design" [Diagram]. Accessed April 30, 2012. http://www.dubai-forever.com/burj-dubai-tower.html

THE STACK EFFECT The stack effect is a common problem in most high rise buildings and is also prevalent but less pronounced and dangerous in everyday buildings and houses. The stack effect is the movement of air into and out of buildings. Commonly, the warmer air is lighter and less dense than cold air. Therefore the warm air will rise to the top of the building while the cold air will try to fill the cracks in the bottom of the building. This is very pronounced in the winter. The problem this

causes is that the pressure in the bottom can build up and can cause more cracking. This could be disastrous to a building as tall as Burj Khalifa. Cracks in the foundation could cause complete structural failure. To mitigate this effect, the designers of the building used several air duct systems to move the warm air out of the building. The stack effect cannot be completely eliminated however it can be mitigated and used as a ventilation system for the upper part of the building.

CONSTRUCTION Common construction principles, such as laying concrete, applying faades, installing windows, etc. soon became feats of engineering themselves. Not only was the record of worlds tallest building shattered, but many more construction-related records followed in similar fate. The task of laying concrete from ground level to heights soaring above 1600 feet had simply never been done before. To do this, engineers simulated the effects of pumping concrete to grand heights by testing concrete through horizontal pipes on the construction site. The effects of friction and volume flow were studied so researchers could estimate the pressure needed to pump concrete upwards of 1600 feet. Setting a world record in the process, engineers successfully used 80 MPa of pressure to pump concrete to a height of 1972 feet. This shattered the previous record of pumping to a height of 1542 feet at the Taipei tower in China.

"High-rise pumping simulated in extensive preliminary tests" [Photograph]. Accessed April 30, 2012. http://www.pmw.co.in/cps/rde/xchg/SID3C6E00FC-39820212/pm_india/hs.xsl/4899_ENU_HTML.htm

Other records shattered include the installation of the towers aluminum and glass faade. This had never been done at the heights of the Burj Khalifa and was a feat in itself. The combined

weight of all the aluminum used on the tower surpasses that of five A380 aircraft. The panels were lifted using a series of cranes and installed by crews of hundreds of specialists. The glass used on the tower was often time handcrafted and installed one-by-one by a crew of skill workers. This had to be done because of the complex and variable design on the towers upward progression. Although not new to skyscrapers, the use of data recording sensors on the tower is enormous. The scale of the network of sensors innovates how engineers understand the complexity behind the design and concrete structure. Starting from the foundation, these sensors were originally installed to monitor the weight of the building and its effect on the concrete as the structure grew taller. As construction progressed, these sensors became numerous and now give engineers the ability to scope how structures behave under immense pressures. This innovation allows engineers and analysts to turn this data into results that are able to be applied to structures of the future.

SAFETY DURING DISASTER With a building of sheer proportion such as the Burj Khalifa which can facilitate up to 12,000 people at once, safety became a priority. One major problem prevalent in the Burj Khalifa is the ability to get to a place of safety during a fire or other disaster. It is completely unreasonable for a person to have to walk down 160 floors if there is a fire; therefore, the designers of Burj Khalifa implemented pressurized, air-conditioned refugee areas every 25 floors. An example of the Fire & Life Safety Plan for Level 42 of the tower can be seen below. The building also possesses a service elevator that can hold 5,500 kg and is the tallest in the world.