The world’s tallest building Burj Khalifa, which was under construction for six years, was inaugurated on 4th Jan 2010. The construction of this 828 m tall, reinforced concrete tower structure, broke several records during its construction. As it is the first time a tower of this height is attempted, a combination of several important technological concepts and innovative structural design methods were utilized in its construction. This article describes some of the features of this world’s tallest tower.
Burj Khalifa: By Numbers
- Height: 828 m; Number of floors: 160+
- Area of Tower: 280,000 sq.m residential and office space and a Giorgio Armani hotel
- Total area: Tower+ Podium: 465,000 sq.m area
- Concrete used : 250,000 cu.m (weight of 110,000 elephants)
- Steel rebars: 39,000 tonnes (laid end to end this would extend over a quarter of the way around the world)
- Curtain walls: 83,600 sq.m of glass and 27,900 sq.m of metal (equivalent of 17 soccer fields)
- The total weight of aluminium used on Burj Khalifa is equivalent to that of five A380 aircrafts and the total length of stainless steel bull nose fins is 293 times the height of Eiffel Tower in Paris.
- Took 22 million man-hours to construct.