Design of the world's tallest buildings- Petronas Twin Towers at Kuala Lumpur City Centre

Abstract

Twin 451.9 m (1482 ft) tall towers just completed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, presented a variety of design challenges related to tall buildings and slender members under wind load, and to construction methods in the Far East. Cast‐in‐place high‐strength concrete for the core, perimeter columns and ring beams provides economical vertical load‐carrying ability, stiff lateral load resistance, and inherent damping for occupant comfort. Steel beams on metal deck slabs provide efficient, economical and quickly‐erected long‐span floors which are easily adaptable to future changes in openings and loadings. The unusual tower plan has alternating cantilevered points and arcs, only 16 main tower columns, haunched wind frame ring beams 8.2 to 9.8 m (27 to 32 ft) long. Vierendeel outriggers at mid‐height and sloped columns at setbacks. A unique arch‐supported skybridge spans 58.4 (190 ft) between towers at levels 41 and 42, where the towers move more than 300 mm (1 ft) in any direction. A stainless steel pinnacle tops each tower. Extensive analytical, force balance and aeroelastic wind studies addressed individual tower behavior, influences between towers, pinnacle behavior, skybridge overall behavior and arch leg behavior. No supplementary damping was needed for the towers. Pinnacles have simple chain impact dampers. Each of the four arch legs has three tuned mass dampers for the three main modes of vortex excitation. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Modal analysis and harmonic response analysis of the Petronas Twin Towers

“…The top of the tower is the damper of the twin towers, which can control the counterweight object to move in the opposite direction through spring and hydraulic device in strong wind weather or earthquake, thereby reducing the vibration of the building. The formula for the damping ratio is 𝜉 ∶ 𝐶 𝐶𝑐𝑟 (1) Where 𝐶𝑐𝑟 is the critical damping coefficient, and c is the damping coefficient. The system is critically damped when 𝐶 = 𝐶𝑐𝑟, over-critically damped when, 𝐶 > 𝐶𝑐𝑟 and under-critically damped when 𝐶 < 𝐶𝑐𝑟 [5].…”

“…They were designed by Argentine-American architect César Pelli and completed in 1996 after a seven-year project. The two towers have 88 floors and a height of 451.9 meters [1]. The towers are built with high-strength concrete with varying strengths up to 80 mPa [2].…”

“…Rotational pins are situated on the top of the arch crown, which helps the crown rise and fall when the towers fluctuate. In addition, each tower has a 74 m steel spire [1]. Because of the soil conditions, the foundation of this building is a 4.42 m thick grade 60 concrete pad, and each building's concrete pad is supported by 85 concrete friction piles, some of which are 121.8 m deep [3].…”

Experimental and Numerical Studies on Steel-Encased Overlapping Column Transfer Assemblies

“…In the past ten years, overlapping column transfer assemblies have been developed as a novel alternative method with the advantage of more efficient utilization of space and less consumption of materials. This method has been applied to projects located in China and other countries, e.g., Petronas Twin Towers at Kuala Lumpur City Centre in Malaysia (Thornton et al, 1997), Fujian Industrial Bank (Shenzhen) Tower (Xu et al, 2003;Fu et al, 2003), Customer Service and Technical Support Center Building of China PING AN INSURANCE Group (Li, 2006), and Tianhe Fangyuan Hotel in Guangzhou (Zhu et al, 2012). Fig.2.…”