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Acta Geotechnica (2013) 8:315 DOI 10.1007/s11440-012-0193-4
RESEARCH PAPER
Re-assessment of foundation settlements for the Burj Khalifa, Dubai
Gianpiero Russo Vincenzo Abagnara
Harry G. Poulos John C. Small
Received: 14 April 2012 / Accepted: 12 October 2012 / Published online: 30 October 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
Abstract This paper deals with the re-assessment of foundation settlements for the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai. The foundation system for the tower is a piled raft, founded on deep deposits of calcareous rocks. Two computer programs, Geotechnical Analysis of Raft with Piles (GARP) and Non-linear Analysis of Piled Rafts (NAPRA) have been used for the settlement analyses, and the paper outlines the procedure adopted to re-assess the foundation settlements based on a careful interpretation of load tests on trial piles in which the interaction effects of the pile test set-up are allowed for. The paper then examines the inuence of a series of factors on the computed settlements. In order to obtain reasonable estimates of differential settlements within the system, it is found desirable to incorporate the effects of the superstructure stiffness which act to increase the stiffness of the overall foundation system. Values of average and differential settlements for the piled raft calculated with GARP and NAPRA were found to be in reasonable agreement with measured data on settlements taken near the end of construction of the tower.
Keywords Case history Footings and foundations
Full-scale tests Piles Rafts Settlement
1 Introduction
The Burj Khalifa in Dubai was ofcially opened in January 2010 and, at a height of 828 m, is currently the worlds tallest building. The foundation system is a piled raft, a form of foundation that is being used increasingly to support tall structures where the loads are expected to be excessively large for a raft alone and where the raft and the piles are able to transfer load to the soil. The foundation design process for this building has been described by Poulos and Bunce [12].
An important component of the design of a piled raft foundation is the detailed assessment of the settlement and differential settlement of the foundation system, and their control by optimising the size, location and arrangement of the piles, and the raft thickness. Many different methods of analysis have been...