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Challenging Design: Foundations for Tall Buildings
By Helen Chow & Frances Badelow
The design of foundations for tall buildings is a challenging task for
geotechnical engineers as they are required to consider all geotechnical
aspects of the project, with the aim of identifying and managing the
geotechnical risks. In the design of foundations for tall buildings,
lateral loadings are of great importance as are the vertical loadings. A
small rotation at the foundation will be magnified to a very large
magnitude at the top of the structure due to the height of the building,
which will affect the serviceability and functionality of the building.
This paper presents the foundation design process for two cases - the 1km high Nakheel Tower in Dubai and the 151 storey Incheon Tower in South Korea. The role of the authors as an internal reviewer of the analyses and an engineer undertaking the numerical analyses during the different project phases will be discussed. Analyses of the proposed foundation were carried out by computer programs using the boundary element method and 2D & 3D finite element methods based on the limit state approach.
Key issues, in particular the overall performance of the foundation, will be addressed. The paper concludes with a summary of the design processes and the basic designcriteria for tall buildings.
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