11 Best Engineering Facts About Burj al Arab [2018]

Best Engineering Facts About Burj Al Arab- 

Learn the Most interesting facts About Burj-Al-Arab.Here you will get to know some Top Notch Engineering Facts about Burj-al-arab.Here you will get Best Engineering facts about Burj al arab.

A Quick-view of some interesting facts about  Burj-al-arab

1. The idea of making this 5*star hotel was came from Dubai prince shaikh-Muhammad-bin rashed-al-makhdub'.
2. The construction of this gorgeous hotel begins in 1994 and ends in 1999.
3. The shape of burj-al-arab is inspired by the Sail of Ship.
4. This hotel was built on an artificial island.
5. Height of the structure is 1053 feet.
6. This high rated hotel weighs about 2.5 lakhs tonnes.
7. Foundation of this structure made with 250 numbers of pile.
8. Surprisingly a Helipad is located at a height of 211 meters from ground level
9. To control wind and earthquake load, 11 numbers of huge dampers(each weighs about 5 tonne) were used.
10. The estimated cost of construction was around 1 billion dollar.
11. One night staying in the icon of Dubai can cost you around almost 2000 US dollar.(SOMETIMES IT COSTS MORE THAN THAT😋)

Construction of 'Burj Al Arab'

The first idea about 'burj-al-arab' was came from  the prince of Dubai 'shaikh-Muhammad-bin rashed-al-makhdub'.

The highest rated hotel is located in Jumeirah street,Dubai

This decision was made to protect the financial state of Dubai that could be in danger in future because Dubai is a well financially supported country in the world due to the main source of oil,but it is estimated that there is a limitation of oil that could end the luxurious life of Dubai.

So,He found that making Dubai world's best tourist place can overcome the financial problem in future.

In 1994 the construction of world's third tallest hotel started.

It took almost 5 years to be completed.The estimated cost of 'burj al arab' is around 1 billion us dollar.

SHAPE OF BURJ AL ARAB

• The shape of the structure is very simple and very unique and is inspired by the sail of ship.
• The basic concept was to represent this structure in a form of sail of ship that describes the history of sea and people belong to that country.
• To complete this look engineers needed an island and due to this reason Structure is constructed on Artificial island.                                              
• 1053 feet tall this structure is the world's only official 7* Hotel(unofficially).This hotel has a helipad at a height of 211 meter from the ground.

Burj al arab construction problems

This is the first time that a structure of this height is made on artificial island .

It gives engineers some new challenges and push them towards their limit of innovation.

To hold 2.5 lakh tons of weight of structure, it's foundation should be strong enough so that it can carry this amount of load and also should be able to resist all natural phenomena that can occurs in a mid sea.

The first challenge that came was high magnitude of sea wave hitting the base of the structure. 

Rock is a bad option to minimize the effect of wave.

 To reduce the effect of Sea Wave a new technology was used for the first time.'pioneering concrete blocks' were used to reduce the wave.

These blocks act like a sponge,when wave hits the water passes inside the space and turn around itself.

Even at a depth of 180 meter,engineers failed to find the bedrock to support the structure.

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As a solution they decided to to drill reinforced concrete pile deep into the sands.But building a foundation can be dangerous because its supported by sand not bedrock.

But the good news was that they found the sand at that depth was compacted sand.                                                           
A total of 250 number of piles are used having a combined length of 10 kilometer.

Other Challenges to the Burj Al Arab

Since the shape of structure is very unorthodox it is going to give some additional problem called 'Vortex Shedding'.In a simple word this vortex shedding causes mini tornado around the sharp edges. 

   The simple solution was to change the aerodynamic shape of this structure but that was not allowed as this will harm the beauty of Burj al arab.

The genius solution was using tuned mass damper as this will not be visible but very effective.

This Damper is basically a hanging weight.When the structure vibrates due to Vortex Shedding 11 number of  damper of a weight of 5 tonnes,will swing and will minimize the vibration.                                                                                                                                                 

BUT The toughest challenge is yet to come. Shaikh of Dubai wanted to amaze the world by its unique design.So he wanted a hanging restaurant near the roof of structure but without any visible support.       

                                            

                                                                                                                                               

 This restaurant is a cantilever structure that extended 27 meter from either side of the mast. 

To make this successful engineers needed to beat the gravitational force.

The structural engineer Anthony McCarter gave a solution-In the concrete core,he cast series of steel brackets known as embedment from which 10 number of steel beams are added to hold the cantilever structure. 


                                                                       

 This gravity defined structure will survive wind effect due to its aerodynamic shape. 

This hanging restaurant has given Burj al arab a dynamic view to the tourist.

Summary

The main motive of Burj Al Arab is to attract visitors from all around the world and to ensure a safe future of Dubai.
In the late 90's this skyscraper set a new standard in terms of civil engineering,as a result many more huge mind blowing project(example-Burj khalifa ,capital gate etc)constructed later and some are still going on(Jeddah tower).

As a conclusion we have no doubt that Burj al arab is one of the greatest example of civil engineering and it is a pride for engineers.

I Hope you liked this post about the best engineering and interesting facts of 'Burj Al Arab'.

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