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  • Essay / Impact of Wind Engineering on the Burj Khalifa Building

    The Burj Khalifa building in Dubai has tested and redefined the way architects design high-rise buildings with respect to wind engineering. In this essay, I will examine how the design and testing of wind engineering techniques changed the design and construction of the Burj Khalifa. How were the latest advances in design and wind testing techniques used to build the world's tallest building? Let's take a look. Say no to plagiarism. Get Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay Given that this building is 828m tall and consists of 162 floors, the Burj Khalifa designed by architect Adrian Smith by Skidmore, Owen and Merrill, (Al-Kodmany, 2011) was to guarantee the structural stability of the tallest building in the world. The taller the building, the greater the effect of wind stress, a common problem being that skyscrapers can sway and cause structural problems and affect the people using it. The challenge with the Burj Khalifa was to design the shape to deflect the wind load around the structure and prevent the formation of high-speed swirls of air currents that would move the building from side to side, causing structural damage. Many skyscrapers are designed with large areas characterized by glass windows for the walls supported by steel frames of tubular construction. These hollow cylinder type structures are designed to resist wind and other lateral loads. However, the higher the building of this type is constructed, the more wind pressure causes many problems, including significant damage to the building. These problems were the case at the former Gulf & Western building in New York. (Flebowitz, 2010) Due to the effect of wind, the 44-story building eventually gave way to cracked ceilings, stairwells, and walls. Loud cracking sounds were evident on the windiest days. In addition, office staff, especially on the upper floors, suffered from nausea when the wind blew strongly. If these issues were not addressed, wind pressure could have caused significant structural damage or even collapse. So, to stabilize the structure, an additional investment of $10 million was spent to add steel reinforcements. (Flebowitz, 2010) Therefore, a conventional skyscraper design was not going to work for the Burj Khalifa. The architects designed the structure using the tube structural system that has now been commonly used since the 1960s in buildings 40 stories or more, using Khan's structural engineering principles. (Zweig, 2014) In particular, this building uses the bundled tube design that architect Adrian Smith also used on the World One Trade Center (Davidson, 2019). Smith's design of the Burj Khalifa included a unique 'Yes'-shaped buttressed core. The purpose of this Y shape is to build a stronger core which will reduce wind stress. Between floors 88 and 92 is a tuned mass damper, which resembles a giant pendulum. This shock absorber helps act as a shock absorber. When wind load pushes the structure in one direction, the damper swings in the opposite direction, significantly reducing sway. Prior to construction, the design underwent extensive wind load testing. After wind tunnel testing on a 1:500 scale model of the building proposed by Rowan Williams Davis & Irwin Inc. (RWDI), the design was radically modified to include a rotation of..