Maintaining the world's tallest building

Set to stand for hundreds of years

Designing and building the world's tallest building may have been a monumental engineering feat and a source of national pride for Dubai, but ensuring that it is probably maintained and protected in the UAE's harsh environment is another concern altogether.

Of course, the fact that the Burj Khalifa cost $1.5 billion (AED5.5 billion) is another factor and ensuring that the project wasn't an extraordinary waste of money is of prime concern to the investors, UAE government, not to mention the tourist industry who have been pushing the 'Burj' as a prime reason to visit the emirate.

Luckily those that designed the building were prepared for the harsh conditions of the emirate.

"The combination of a 100 year design-life and the aggressive exposure conditions of Dubai's environment were the reasons the designer had to carefully consider the durability of the tower's sub-structure," said Dr. James Aldred, of GHD Consulting Engineers, Manager of the Independent Verification and Testing Agency (IVTA) for the Burj Khalifa project.

Construction in The Gulf

A problem for construction in Dubai, and the Gulf region in general, is that substructures are exposed to are exposed to a shallow water table with high levels of salinity, which threatens the embedded steel reinforcement with corrosion.

In order to prevent corrosion of the metal structure, a high quality ternary blend concrete was used in the substructure of the tower, along with other durability enhancing measures to enable and ensure the desired lifespan.

Among them was a migrating corrosion inhibitor (MCI) supplied by United Corrosion Technologies that was added into the concrete mix. The purpose of this MCI was to provide corrosion protection to steel reinforcement using bio-based renewable resources.

"In our region's harsh environment, steel reinforcement can corrode rapidly, threatening structural strength and necessitating costly repair. Good engineering practice in designing for durability goes a long way in preserving structures and saving operating costs." said Usama Jacir, managing director of United Corrosion Technologies.

However, 100 years is the bare minimum that the tower should stand for, like the Eiffel Tower and Empire State Building before it, the Burj Dubai is expected to be one of the great architectural triumphs that will stand for centuries to come.

Relevant articles:

Burj Khalifa observation deck closed | Dubai's 014 building | $680m to be used to finish projects in Dubai

Timon Singh

Timon Singh is a graduate of Liverpool University where he received a degree in Social and Economic History. He has previously worked for BBC Magazines on BBC Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine, the publication for the popular genealogy show.

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