Design, Construction & Structural Details

of Burj al Khalifa

Excavation work began for Burj Khalifa the tallest skyscraper in the
world in January 2004 and over the years, the building passed many
important milestones to become the tallest man-made structure the world
has ever seen. In just 1,325 days since excavation work started in
January, 2004, Burj Khalifa became the tallest free-standing structure in
the world.

Burj al Dubai - Now known as Burj Khalifa

The goal of the Burj Dubai Tower is not simply to be the world's highest
building: it's to embody the world's highest aspirations. The
superstructure has reached over 165 stories. The final height of the
building is 2,717 feet (828 meters). The height of the multi-use
skyscraper has "comfortably" exceed the previous record holder, the 509
meter (1671 ft) tall Taipei 101.
The 280,000 m2 (3,000,000 ft2) reinforced concrete multi-use Burj Dubai
tower is utilized for retail, a Giorgio Armani Hotel, residential and office.
As with all super-tall projects, difficult structural engineering problems
needed to be addressed and resolved.

Structural System Description

Burj Khalifa has "refuge floors" at 25 to 30 story intervals that are more
fire resistant and have separate air supplies in case of emergency. Its
reinforced concrete structure makes it stronger than steel-frame
skyscrapers.
Designers purposely shaped the structural concrete Burj Dubai - "Y" shaped in plan - to
reduce the wind forces on the tower, as well as to keep the structure simple and foster
constructibility. The structural system can be described as a "buttressed" core (Figures 1, 2
and 3). Each wing, with its own high performance concrete corridor walls and perimeter
columns, buttresses the others via a six-sided
central core, or hexagonal hub. 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.
Each tier of the building sets back in a spiral
stepping pattern up the building. The
setbacks are organized with the Tower's grid,
such that the building stepping is
accomplished by aligning columns above
with walls below to provide a smooth load