Articles

The Lusail Towers and Podiums: An UHPFRC Application between Codes

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Abstract

The paper will describe the normative context and the calculation methodology applied for the UHPFRC (Ductal® White PVA Fibers) panels realized for the Lusail Plaza Podium buildings, a project by Foster + Partners in Qatar. C&E Engineering, together with the manufacturing company Doha Extraco, provided more than 25.000 panels. The unusual scale of intervention, the crossing of different structural engineering cultures (the complex superposition of American and European codes), the use of BIM software as a universal technical tool, the use of a new material such as UHPFRC, obliged us to reframe our design habits. Starting from this hypothesis, the paper, will focus on: How the differences between the design objectives and the technological constraints (the machine, the materials, and the construction process) affect the quality of the final result; the role of the architectural and technological knowledge in the design process and on its outcome; and the possibility to deduce a common practice from the experience in order to generalize the applied design process. The paper will also illustrate the international framework of the project (the panels were manufactured in Qatar, designed in France, and 3D-modeled in India and China), which required an innovative coordination set-up. The Lusail Plaza design process is built on the idea of "reasoning about actions": starting from an initial situation, a set of possible choices and constraints restrict the applicability of the actions that will affect positively the design.

Keywords: UHPFRC, codes, design criteria

How to Cite:

Weill, J. & Principe, J., (2023) “The Lusail Towers and Podiums: An UHPFRC Application between Codes”, International Interactive Symposium on Ultra-High Performance Concrete 3(1): 34. doi: https://doi.org/10.21838/uhpc.16660

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