Basic design considerations

Good structural design is important in most building design, but particularly for skyscrapers since even a small chance of catastrophic failure is unacceptable given the high price. This presents a paradox to civil engineers: the only way to assure a lack of failure is to test for all modes of failure, in both the laboratory and the real world. But the only way to know of all modes of failure is to learn from previous failures. Thus, no engineer can be absolutely sure that a given structure will resist all loadings that could cause failure, but can only have large enough margins of safety such that a failure is acceptably unlikely. When buildings do fail, engineers question whether the failure was due to some lack of foresight or due to some unknowable factor. [edit]

Loading and vibration

Taipei 101 endures a typhoon (2005)

The load a skyscraper experiences is largely from the force of the building material itself. In most building designs, the weight of the structure is much larger than the weight of the material that it will support beyond its own weight. In technical terms, the dead load, the load of the structure, is larger than the live load, the weight of things in the structure (people, furniture, vehicles, etc.). As such, the amount of structural material required within the lower levels of a skyscraper will be much larger than the material required within higher levels. This is not always visually apparent. The Empire State Building's setbacks are actually a result of the building code at the time, and were not structurally required. On the other hand John Hancock Center's shape is uniquely the result of how it supports loads. Vertical supports can come in several types, among which the most common for skyscrapers can be categorized as steel frames, concrete cores, tube within tube design, and shear walls. The wind loading on a skyscraper is also considerable. In fact, the lateral wind load imposed on super-tall structures is generally the governing factor in the structural design. Wind pressure increases with height, so for very tall buildings, the loads associated with wind are larger than dead or live loads. Other vertical and horizontal loading factors come from varied, unpredictable sources, such as earthquakes. [edit]Shear

walls

A shear wall, in its simplest definition, is a wall where the entire material of the wall is employed in the resistance of both horizontal and vertical loads. A typical example is a brick or cinderblock wall. Since the wall material is used to hold the weight, as the wall expands in size, it must hold considerably more weight. Due to the features of a shear wall, it is acceptable for small constructions, such as suburban housing or an urban brownstone, to require low material costs and little maintenance. In this way, shear walls, typically in the form of plywood and framing, brick, or cinderblock, are used for these structures. For skyscrapers, though, as the

size of the structure increases, so does the size of the supporting wall. Large structures such as castles and cathedrals inherently addressed these issues due to a large wall being advantageous (castles), or ingeniously designed around (cathedrals). Since skyscrapers seek to maximize the floor-space by consolidating structural support, shear walls tend to be used only in conjunction with other support systems. [edit]Steel

frame

The classic concept of a skyscraper is a large steel box with many small boxes inside it. The genius of the steel frame is its simplicity. By eliminating the inefficient part of a shear wall, the central portion, and consolidating support members in a much stronger material, steel, a skyscraper could be built with both horizontal and vertical supports throughout. This method, though simple, has drawbacks. Chief among these is that as more material must be supported (as height increases), the distance between supporting members must decrease, which actually in turn, increases the amount of material that must be supported. This becomes inefficient and uneconomic for buildings above 40 stories tall as usable floor spaces are reduced for supporting column and due to more usage of steel.[1][2] [edit]Tube

frame

Main article: Tube (structure)

The Willis Tower showing the bundled tube frame design

Since 1963, a new structural system of framed tubes appeared. Fazlur Khan and J. Rankine defined the framed tube structure as "a three dimensional space structure composed of three, four, or possibly more

frames, braced frames, or shear walls, joined at or near their edges to form a vertical tube-like structural system capable of resisting lateral forces in any direction by cantilevering from the foundation." [3] Closely spaced interconnected exterior columns form the tube. Horizontal loads (primarily wind) are supported by the structure as a whole. About half the exterior surface is available for windows. Framed tubes allow fewer interior columns, and so create more usable floor space. Where larger openings like garage doors are required, the tube frame must be interrupted, with transfer girders used to maintain structural integrity. Tube structures cut down costs, at the same time allow buildings to reach greater heights. Tube-frame construction was first used in the DeWitt-Chestnut Apartment Building, designed by Khan and completed in Chicago in 1963.[4] It was used soon after for the John Hancock Centerand in the construction of the World Trade Center. A variation on the tube frame is the bundled tube, which uses several interconnected tube frames. The Willis Tower in Chicago used this design, employing nine tubes of varying height to achieve its distinct appearance. The bundle tube design was not only highly efficient in economic terms, but it was also "innovative in its potential for versatile formulation of architectural space. Efficient towers no longer had to be box-like; the tubeunits could take on various shapes and could be bundled together in different sorts of groupings." [5] The bundled tube structure meant that "buildings no longer need be boxlike in appearance: they could become sculpture."[6] Cities have experienced a huge surge in skyscraper construction, thanks to Khan's innovations allowing economic skyscrapers. The tubular systems are fundamental to tall building design. Most buildings over 40-storeys constructed since the 1960s now use a tube design derived from Khans structural engineering principles, [1][7] examples including the construction of the World Trade Center,Aon Centre, Petronas Towers, Jin Mao Building, and most other supertall skyscrapers since the 1960s.[8] The strong influence of tube structure design is also evident in the construction of the current tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa.[6]

Fazlur Rahman Khan, the father of tubular design, is the most influential structural engineer of the 20th century. He has been called the "Einstein of Structural Engineering" for his revolutionary work which remain fundamental to modern skyscraper construction.[9] His breakthroughs in structural engineering for tall and longspan buildings exerted an unprecedented and lasting influence on the profession, both nationally and internationally. With a career marked by a legacy of innovations that is unpeered, Khan has become an icon in both architecture and structural engineering.[10]

The elevator conundrum

Elevators in the Empire State Building

The invention of theelevator was a precondition for the invention of skyscrapers, given that most people would not (or could not) climb more than a few flights of stairs at a time. The elevators in a skyscraper are not simply

a necessary utility, like running water and electricity, but are in fact closely related to the design of the whole structure: a taller building requires more elevators to service the additional floors, but the elevator shafts consume valuable floor space. If the service core, which contains the elevator shafts, becomes too big, it can reduce the profitability of the building. Architects must therefore balance the value gained by adding height against the value lost to the expanding service core.[11] Many tall buildings use elevators in a non-standard configuration to reduce their footprint. Buildings such as the former World Trade Center Towers and Chicago's John Hancock Center use sky lobbies, where express elevators take passengers to upper floors which serve as the base for local elevators. This allows architects and engineers to place elevator shafts on top of each other, saving space. Sky lobbies and express elevators take up a significant amount of space, however, and add to the amount of time spent commuting between floors. Other buildings, such as the Petronas Towers, use double-deck elevators, allowing more people to fit in a single elevator, and reaching two floors at every stop. It is possible to use even more than two levels on an elevator, although this has never been done. The main problem with double-deck elevators is that they cause everyone in the elevator to stop when only people on one level need to get off at a given floor.

Plumbing

Skyscraper Plumbing Designing skyscrapers is an extremely complicated art that integrates several different logistic operations and utilities. Plumbing is one of the more Figure 9 challenging problems to solve due to the loss in pressure as water travels up a vertical pipe.Plumbing engineers found out that as you lift water above a datum, you lose 1 pound per square inch for every 2.3 feet of elevation. This small butincremental loss makes achieving high water pressure at the top of a water column very difficult. Most water fixtures require at least 25 psi tooperate or flush properly, so measures to insure consistent water pressure throughout the building must be implemented. As the building get taller,another problem arises as the water pressure at the bottom of a vertical pipe becomes too great for safe operation and building codes. The Solution The early solution to this problem was a water tank mounted on the top of a building with fill pumps at the bottom of the building, a simple gravitydown feed arrangement.Today, a system of pressure-reducing valves and sub-risers are used to manage the inconsistent water pressure throughout a skyscraper. Pressure-reducing valves reduce the pressure at the bottom of the building, while sub-risers increase the pressure for the skyscrapers upper floors. Today'ssystems lack a main tank, but rather integrate the whole system within a buildings walls and basement.Water pressure controlling devices are constantly evolving as new concerns about the environment arise and the publics awareness about green building practices increases. Drainage Drainage is another common issue in skyscrapers, and is often just as difficult to solve as water pressure problems. When water falls verticallydown a pipe, the water will adhere to the pipe's

walls until the pipe's cross sectional area is about one-fourth full. Once the gravity propelled water hits a horizontal bend in the pipe, the flow velocity drops dramatically, and fills the pipe considerably more due to the lost speed. It is common

practice to use relief or yoke vents to slow the water before it encounters a horizontal flow change. The piping at the base of a vertical drainagecolumn must be secured, as to reduce the risk of breaking joints. Venting For water to travel down a vertical pipe, air is necessary. Air ventilation must be controlled so that low pressure zones can be created, and the flowof water can continue. The low pressure zones should not be placed near a fixture, or else poor drainage could occur (often recognized by a gulpingsound and poor flow performance). It is however okay to place air vents in the fixtures themselves to increase water flow. Material Most high-rise plumbing systems use Type-L copper. On some very tall buildings, stainless steel must be used because of the extra pressure. Mechanical