Tall & Strong: Burj Khalifa

The worlds tallest tower , the Burj Khalifa, stands at 828 meters.  It holds several records like ‘the tallest free standing structure in the world.’ To have broken several world records, it is obvious that the Khalifas design had to be extravagant. Inside this tower are various things. There is a fine dining restaurant on the 122^nd floor, there are residential apartments, corporate offices, and also an observation deck on the 124^th floor. Apart from this, The Armani hotel is also part of the tower. Can you imagine? A hotel is part of a building and not the building itself!

Getting to the design, in my view, the Burj Khalifa is a fine example of biomimicry. The architects say that the organic inspiration for building the structure the way they did was the hymenocallis flower. Like petals from a stem, the towers wings extend from the central core. One of the architectural engineers, Adrian Smith said that ‘his most inspiring muse was the flower, whose harmonious structure is one of the organizing principles of the towers design.’ The structure of the building has a triple lobed footprint which has been adopted from the structure of the flower. Below is a picture that relates the flower to the structure.

The 3 wings that stick out provide a Y-Shaped structure which In turn gives the tower a stable base configuration which is primarily the most important factor for a 0.8 km building. There are 26 sprial levels which are a part of the building. The function of these is to reduce the cross sectional are of the tower as it heads to the sky. The reason this is done is to maximize the height and wind tunnel testing proved that having a smaller cross sectional area will prove to be safer for climatic changes in Dubai.

Another interesting thing about the Towers design is the unique Lightning protection system. The tip of the tower is covered with these sensitive sensor panels that identify activity in the atmosphere. When the condition of lightning is detected, it identifies the polarity
(+/-) of the charge. Depending on the identified polarity the panels create a potential charge at the top of the tower which is very, very strong. Therefore when there is a strike of lightning coming down on the tower, the panels throw up a lightning strike, which is stronger. This prevents the tower from having to go through any damage. This makes the Burj Khalifa not only the tallest,but definitely also the strongest towers.

Bibliography:

• http://www.burjkhalifa.ae/en/
• http://gulfnews.com/business/general/unique-sensor-system-deflects-lightning-from-burj-khalifa-1.580777
• http://www.eface.in/lightning-hitting-burj-khalifa-find-how-burj-khalifa-escaped-from-lightning/
• Pictures from Google.com