High-Rise Buildings
There are numerous engineering challenges to overcome in the design of high-rise buildings and skyscrapers. Below are four of the most difficult challenges to overcome and how you can mitigate the dangers they present.
Wind
One of the most significant challenges when designing a high-rise building is accounting for the wind. Anyone who has ever been at a high altitude will know that the wind speeds can be incredibly fast. This presents several logistical challenges for architects and engineers. Some buildings, such as the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, are so tall that they have their own weather system and wind to worry about.
New high-rise projects aren’t going to be quite as ambitious as the Burj Khalifa. However, the higher a building is, the more difficult it is to overcome the challenges presented by high wind speeds.
Modern architects design skyscrapers to confuse the wind. This technique involves using the building’s geometry to create artificial vertices and concentrated pockets of force that can be used to balance out the force applied by high winds.
Dampers
Those high winds lead to a significant amount of shaking and swaying. Any modern high-rise building or skyscraper needs to be designed with dampers in place to absorb the shock of these movements. Without dampers in place, high winds can cause severe structural damage to a high-rise building, both in the short and long-term.
Dampers utilize some simple principles of physics but in an ingenious way. Dampers are generally large devices held in place near the top of a tall structure. If the building shakes or sways due to high winds or an earthquake, these dampers will counteract the forces acting on the building, acting as a counterweight.
Elevator Drives
Every high-rise building needs an elevator system to enable occupants and visitors to access higher floors easily. Elevators can have a wide range of applications. As well as transporting people between different floors of a building, they are also necessary to transport goods and equipment between floors in many high-rise buildings.
Regardless of what you will use the elevators in your high-rise building for, you need to ensure that they are up to the task. Inadequate elevator drives can create safety issues as well as practical problems. Ensure that you consider your requirements carefully and plan for an elevator you are sure will cope.
Materials
Concrete has been a staple building material for many years now. You could be forgiven for assuming that all concrete was created equal. However, the precise makeup of concrete has actually changed quite a lot over the years. Modern concrete is vastly different from that which we used just a few decades ago. Modern concrete has a different chemical composition, making it stronger, yet lighter.
Designing high-rise buildings has always presented a unique challenge for architects, engineers, and builders. The four challenges above are some of the most significant facing high-rise designers. Anyone hoping to embark on a high-rise project needs to understand these challenges and how they can be overcome.
