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Burj khalifa, Did You Know

Burj Khalifa, do you know what it took to build the worlds tallest free standing building?

Burj Khalifa

Over 45,000 m3 (58,900 cu yd) of concrete, weighing more than 110,000 tonnes were used to construct the concrete and steel foundation, which features 192 piles buried more than 50 m (164 ft) deep. Burj Khalifa’s construction will have used 330,000 m3 (431,600 cu yd) of concrete and 39,000 tonnes (43,000 ST; 38,000 LT) of steel rebar, and construction will have taken 22 million man-hours.

Exterior cladding of Burj Khalifa began in May 2007 and was completed in September 2009. The vast project involved more than 380 skilled engineers and on-site technicians. At the initial stage of installation, the team progressed at the rate of about 20 to 30 panels per day and eventually achieved as many as 175 panels per day.

The tower accomplished a world record for the highest installation of an aluminium and glass façade, at a height of 512 metres. The total weight of aluminium used on Burj Khalifa is equivalent to that of five A380 aircraft and the total length of stainless steel bull nose fins is 293 times the height of Eiffel Tower in Paris.

In November, 2007, the highest reinforced concrete corewalls were pumped using 80 MPa concrete from ground level; a vertical height of 601 metres. Smashing the previous pumping record on a building of 470m on the Taipei 101; the world’s second tallest tower and the previous world record for vertical pumping of 532 metres for an extension to the Riva del Garda Hydroelectric Power Plant in 1994. The concrete pressure during pumping to this level was nearly 200 bars.

The amount of rebar used for the tower is 31,400 metric tons – laid end to end this would extend over a quarter of the way around the world.

 

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Forth Road Bridge, Did You Know?

Forth Road Bridge

  • The Forth Road Bridge is a long-span suspension bridge which was opened on September 4, 1964, by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
  • Construction began in 1958 and the project cost £19.5 million.
  • Over 24 million vehicles cross the bridge each year.
  • Nearly 40,000 tonnes of steel and 125,000 cubic metres of concrete went into its construction.
  • When it opened, it was the first bridge of its kind in the UK, the longest outside the USA and the fourth longest in the world. It features a dual two-lane carriageway and cycletracks/footpaths.
  • The full length of the bridge is 2.5 km, which includes a main span of 1,006m between the two main towers, side spans of 408m each and north and south viaducts of 252m and 438m respectively.
  • 49,280 km (30,000 miles or 6,350 tonnes) of wire make up the two main cables from which the suspended deck hangs. Each cable is 590mm in diameter and made of 11,618 high-tensile wires, each 4.98mm-thick.
  • These main cables each take 13,800 tonnes of the total load and are anchored into the rock on both sides of the Forth. The anchorages are made of concrete cast in tunnels between 56 and 79m in length of tapering section cut into the rock at an inclination of 30° to the horizontal. The concrete is strengthened by steel post-tensioning strands grouted into conduits.
  • The bridge’s two main towers stand over 150m above the mean water level, support the majority of the bridge’s weight, and are of welded cellular high-tensile steel construction, featuring steel up to 25mm thick. The towers were strengthened in the late 1990s to support the ever-increasing weights of heavy goods vehicles crossing the bridge.
  • The north tower stands on the Mackintosh Rock while the south tower features caissons founded on sandstone some 32m below high water. Defences around both piers were added in the late 1990s to withstand potential collisions from shipping.
  • The side towers are located where the approach viaducts meet the suspended span. These substantial reinforced concrete structures help to support the weight of the main cable as well as both approach viaducts.
  • The suspended span decks hang from the bridge’s two main cables by 768 steel hanger ropes of 48mm (main span) and 57mm (side span) in diameter that are between 2.4 and 90 m long. These hanger ropes were all replaced between 1998 and 2000 and each set of four takes loads of 176 and 224 tonnes.
  • The bridge’s suspended deck is 36m wide but no more than 38mm thick. It consists of a steel stiffening truss with three longitudinal air gaps at roadway level to improve aerodynamic stability.
  • As the roadway expands and contracts according to varying temperature, wind and weight of traffic, expansion joints are embedded in the roadway under the two main towers.
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Eiffel Tower, Did You Know?

Eiffel Tower

It’s 126 years since the famous Iron Lady was inaugurated in time for the 1889 World Fair in Paris.

It is now one of  the most visited monuments in the world and around seven million people climb its stairs or take the lift to one of its three levels each year.

But it’s worth remembering that it was not always this popular. When construction began in July 1887, a group of around 300 artists, sculptors and architects sent a petition to the commissioner of the Paris exhibition demanding that he halt construction of the “ridiculous tower”.

Here are 12 facts about the Eiffel Tower:

1. Two years, two months and five days – That’s how long it took to build the Eiffel Tower, with construction beginning in 1887.

2. 7,799,401.31 – That’s what it cost in French gold Francs to build the monument.

3. 324 metres – That’s the height of the Eiffel Tower, including the antenna at the top. That works out at 1,063 feet. Without the antenna it is 300 metres tall (984 feet).

4. Six inches – That’s how much the tower grows in the sun. Yes the Eiffel Tower grows when it gets hot and shrinks in the cold. Although this is fairly hard to see with the naked eye.

5. 10,000 tonnes – That’s how much the Iron Lady weighs.

6. 20 years – That’s how long the Eiffel Tower was originally designed to last. It was built by Gustave Eiffel to commemorate the French Revolution and show off France’s industrial might. The removal men were meant to pull it down after 20 years, but Eiffel appears to have persuaded them to have a change of heart. The fact that the tower could be used as a wireless telegraph transmitter, made it fairly useful and saved it from the wrecking ball.

7. 103,000 kilometres – That’s the distance one lift travels each year, according the site livescience.com, which, to put into perspective is two and a half times the circumference of the earth. There are steps up to the top – 1,710 of them – but visitors can only walk up to the first floor.

8. 18 – That’s the number of times the iron lady has been repainted over the years. It takes a mammoth 60 tonnes of paint to give it a first coat. 

9.  41 years – That’s how long the Eiffel Tower was the world’s tallest building for, before the Chrysler Building in New York came along and stole its mantle.

10. 250 million – That’s the number of people who have paid a visit to the Eiffel Tower over the years. 

11. 1944 – The year when the Eiffel Tower could have been pulled down. Hitler ordered the German military governor of France to tear it down but he refused.

12. Six to seven metres – This is the amount the Eiffel Tower sways in the wind.

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