THE PROJECT
The Project is the home to an indoor flight chamber and free climbing wall. This 55m tall building will be a prime tourist destination, the building’s unique façade shape creates a new landmark on the Yas Island, Abu Dhabi.
The cladding is made up of triangular panels supported by the structural steel frame. The structural frame is supported on foundation pads at ground level and laterally restrained by concrete core walls. Each panel has a unique geometric shape and none of the panels are repeated. Each panel is on a different plane. The structural framing consists of primary triangular frames made up of tubular steel members. Secondary trusses are connected to primary frame members. Finally, the triangular cladding panels are fixed to the structural frame.
CHALLENGES AND SUCCESS FACTORS
As each of the panels is on a different plane and is of unique geometric dimensions, it was tedious and time-consuming to create the structural frames for each panel manually. To achieve this automatically, we made use of API developed in-house. As each of the panels are of varying dimensions, the depth of the Trusses in each panel was unique depending on the design requirement. The information such as the truss depth and type of truss etc. are entered in the user-field of each panel and this data is extracted by the API (built in-house) to create the frames and trusses automatically. Though the connections are simple, the application of these connections was tedious due to the orientation of the panel and the rotation of the connected members in 3D-Space. API developed in-house was used to apply these connections accurately and in a shorter time.
BENEFITS / BIM, TEKLA SOFTWARE, AND TRIMBLE;
Detailing of this type of structure with such a complicated geometry and shape would have been very difficult without 3D modelling software. The open API option in TEKLA gave us a large scope to explore and develop routines to do modeling and detailing in a relatively short time and with sufficient accuracy.
ABOUT DNEC
Structural Engineering Consultancy, Specialized in Design, Detailing and Construction Engineering of complex Steel and Concrete Structures.
PRIMARY ROLE IN THIS PROJECT
Structural Design - industrial project
MAIN CONTRACTOR - ZUBLIN CONSTRUCTION LLC
