World's tallest tower: did you know ...

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This was published 14 years ago

World's tallest tower: did you know ...

By Arjun Ramachandran

Burj numbers:

* Cost of construction: reportedly about $US1.5 billion

* It required 330,000 cubicmetres of concrete, 39,000 tonnes of steel, and 22 million man-hours.

* Concrete pumped into walls vertically, up to a height of 601 metres. This feat beat the previous record of 470 metres, achieved for the Taipei 101 building.

Would you look at that ... one of the first to take a look at the scenery from the top of the tower.

Would you look at that ... one of the first to take a look at the scenery from the top of the tower.Credit: AFP

* Volume of concrete used on the tower's core could be used to build a footpath 2000kms long. The steel reinforcing bar would stretch a quarter of the way around the Earth.

* The tower's cooling system produces enough condensation to fill 20 Olympic swimming pools a year. This condensation runs down into the tower's irrigation system, and services its landscaped areas.

* The tower's glass and steel exterior would cover 17 football fields, and takes six to eight weeks to clean.

Legends

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In the rarefied air occuped by construction workers, legends were born.

In December 2008, London's Telegraph wrote about "Babu Sassi", the operator of a crane perched at the peak of the hotel.

According to the paper, Sassi - from Kerala in southern India - was a cult hero on the site because of his fearlessness and dedication at remarkable altitudes.

"His office, the cramped crane cab perched on top of the Burj, is also his home — apparently it takes too long to come down to the ground each day to make it worthwhile," the Telegraph wrote.

It said he had been in the crane for about a year. The story spread quickly around the world.

But Sassi's existence was questioned.

“I presume much of it is just rumour and speculation,” Shaun Killa, a Dubai architect involved with the project told the Khaleej Times in November 2009, after the top floor was completed and the cranes were dismantled.

Height undecided

The Burj developers' audacious bid to build the world's tallest building was reflected in their dealings with designers.

As though operating under the motto "how long is a piece of string", engineers were apparently not set a final height specification, and consistently urged skyward by developers.

"We thought that it would be slightly taller than the existing tallest tower of Taipei 101. (But developer Emaar) kept on asking us to go higher but we didn't know how high we could go," said Bill Baker from Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), the company that designed the tower.

"We were able to tune the building like we tune a musical instrument. As we went higher and higher and higher, we discovered that by doing that process... we were able to reach heights much higher than we ever thought we could.

"We learned quite a bit from Burj Dubai. I would think we could easily do a one kilometre (tower). We are optimistic about the ability to go even higher."

How it was built

Developers used high-altitude tower cranes to achieve the breathtaking height of the Burj. The cranes were attached to the building and operated as high as 750 metres above ground level, lifting building materials from below, according the Gulf News.

Each crane was capable of lifting 25-tonnes and could withstand 120km/h winds. Crucial to the project's objective of breaking height records, the cranes could move up the tower as levels were completed.

"But as the tower grew in height, the floor plates and working area became smaller and smaller, providing insufficient room to fit the three cranes at the top of construction," developer Emaar said in a statement.

By the final stage of the project, two of the three cranes had clambered back down the tower's exterior, leaving one to complete construction.

In total, the cranes lifted 63,300 tonnes of steel reinforcement, ran for 45,000 man hours and were operated by 35 technicians.

Life in the cranes

Life in the cab of a crane 750 metres above ground was not always pleasant, according to construction company Arabtec. "At the top of the Burj the cranes and their operators had to endure all kinds of weather such as squally winds of up to 120 km per hour, dust clouds coming from the northwest, rain and fog and temperatures not far away from freezing point.

"In general the temperature at the top of the tower ranges between 7 to 8 degrees celsius cooler than at ground level."

But one burj operator told the Gulf News he was more concerned about other crane operators, rather than the weather.

"The biggest challenge is to stay focused and watch the crane traffic, to see which is moving towards or away from you. The cabin has air-conditioning and I have a heater so I can make coffee." said Gurjeet Singh, from India.

Bringing the cranes down

If erecting the tallest tower was a marvel of construction, bringing the equipment back down appears to have been just as significant a feat.

In what the developers called a "finely orchestrated set piece", the top-most crane partially dismantled itself, passing components down to one of the other cranes, which had earlier climbed down the tower.

"The crane removed its own mast sections and lowered them to the ground until the boom and power pack were at the position of the level 159 recovery crane.

"From there, the Level 159 recovery crane dismantled the remainder of the main crane, lowering the pieces of boom, mast and power pack to the recovery crane at Level 99, which further lowered them to the ground."

Who built the Burj?

The Burj was built by 10,000 construction workers from over 59 companies. Most workers were poor migrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

For many, visiting the top of the tower was a goal.

“I have never gone up. I am waiting for a chance to climb the building,” 23-year-old Bangladeshi

electrician Mohammed Ismail Hussain told UAE publication 7Days.

In 2006, about 2500 workers rioted over pay and conditions, causing damage estimated at $882,000.

Construction casualties

Despite the obvious risks in building the world's tallest tower, there was only one construction-related death, in 2007, the Gulf News said.

"We regret to announce a fatality reported by our contractor at Burj Dubai, where a worker fell to his death," a spokesman for developer Emaar said at the time.

The worker was killed after falling from a climbing form, it said.

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But a report last year in the Independent described squalid conditions for construction workers in Dubai and noted a Human Rights Watch study had found a "cover-up of the true extent" of deaths from heat exhaustion, overwork and suicide.

with wires

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