In an increasingly populous and urbanized world, in areas where land is scarce and expensive it makes sense to build upwards.
With more than 50 years’ involvement in designing and constructing buildings of various heights, Peikko is well placed to make Tall Buildings – structures of 14 or more floors (50 meters) – efficient and safe to build and operate.
Peikko’s new White Paper starts by examining the physics and dynamics of Tall Buildings, detailing key influences on design such as wind and seismic lateral loads.
The White Paper discusses methods of reducing wind-induced lateral deflection and deviation, and uncomfortable motion perception for people on higher floors. These include dampers, which are particularly important in residential buildings.
Also covered is the historical evolution of ways to make Tall Buildings stronger and more laterally stable and rigid, such as using rigidly jointed structural frames, moving the major resisting structure towards the building’s core, wrapping the building into a diagrid web, and splitting the building into several upright tubes.
In the global race for building height and to overcome the shortcomings of a single structural system, the White Paper states that it is often worth integrating the strengths of different systems to obtain the desired behavior. Rigid frames are economical for buildings up to 25-30 floors, above which their lateral deformation (deflection and drift) is hard to control. If, however, a rigid frame is combined with a shear wall system, the resulting stiffer structure enables the building to rise to 60-70 floors. To go higher than this, a more complex structure is required.
Global examples
The rest of the White Paper looks at how Peikko has helped with Tall Building projects around the world.
To demonstrate the importance of efficient footings and foundations, the White Paper highlights Peikko’s double-headed shear rail system in the Monde Condominiums, Toronto. Shear rails were used in the five-story underground car park, facilitating construction, and allowing thinner walls and more space for parking.
Slim floors maximize the number of floors relative to building height, and several examples are given: the 300 Main and Glasshouse projects in Winnipeg, Canada, which used Peikko DELTABEAM®; and the ÖBB, Austrian Federal Railways, headquarters in Vienna, and the Lighthouse Tower in Aarhus, Denmark, which used flat slabs and Peikko PSB® Punching Reinforcement.
DELTABEAM® Slim Floor Structures reduce floor plate thickness, so the accumulated saved height over many stories can create an additional story/s, therefore increasing occupancy and return on investment.
They are also prefabricated and so quickly assembled, and they reduce building weight, cut foundation costs, and do not require three coats of intumescent paint. In addition, they have a good fire rating and permit the straightforward installation of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.
The ÖBB HQ has relatively slim reinforced concrete slabs enabled by Peikko’s PSB® Punching Reinforcement and CUBO Column Caps. Due to be completed in 2022, the Lighthouse Tower uses post-tensioned 200mm thin flat slabs and PSB® Punching Reinforcement.
Next the White Paper provides several examples of enabling accelerated climbing formwork for shear wall cores: the TaunusTurm in Frankfurt, Germany; the Nordbro in Copenhagen, Denmark; the Roche Turm Bau 2 in Basel, Switzerland; and the Jewel Towers on the Gold Coast, Australia.
The TaunusTurm used a time and space efficient combination of slipform core construction, prefabricated concrete columns, beams and slabs, Peikko’s PCs® Corbels, and PC® Beam Shoes.
In the three Jewel Towers, ADJUSTA Joint Reinforcement was installed in the slab-to-core connections via climbing formwork, enabling continuity of reinforcement between the concrete members.
The White Paper then shows how Peikko simplifies connections between structural components, giving the examples of Omniturm in Frankfurt, and Copenhagen Towers in Denmark.
In the case of Omniturm, to avoid torsional moments between the main and secondary beams, Peikko’s HPKM® Column Shoes and COPRA® Anchoring Couplers were used. To minimize crane time when building Copenhagen Towers, a total of 140 columns made use of Peikko’s HPKM® Bolted Column Connections.
Peikko also proves design flexibility, as exemplified by ICON in Växjö, Sweden. This building uses braced DELTABEAM® Frame, a steel and concrete composite structure, whose slim floors, and columns create more space.
Other Peikko solutions for Tall Buildings include custom-made steel components for an ongoing tower complex in Vienna, Austria.
Read Peikko’s White Paper: Tall Building Solutions
Interested to hear more? Join my webinar tomorrow, September 29th at 13.00 CET.
Tall Building solutions – How to build and operate your next Tall Building more efficiently?
Join the webinar to hear how Peikko’s products and solutions can be applied in Tall Buildings. You will see illustrations of reference projects from all over the world, and learn how using Peikko’s solutions has solved issues in various Tall Building designs.
Register here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/8305456158875165195
A recording will be available later here www.peikko.com/webinars.
