Case History
Geotechnical Design for the Nakheel Tall Tower
By Chris Haberfield, Darren Paul, Max Ervin,
Golder Associates Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia
1. Introduction
The recently announced Nahkeel Tower in Dubai, UAE (Figure 1) will extend to in excess of 1 km in height and at about 2,000,000 tonnes dead load it will be one of the heaviest buildings on earth. The bearing pressures applied to the ground coupled with the soft rock ground conditions present at the site provided a significant challenge to the design of the footing system. The following presents a brief summary of the ground investigation undertaken and of the development of the footing system which is currently being installed.
Figure 1: Nakheel Tower, Dubai, UAE
2. Geology
An arid climate prevailed in the area during Holocene times facilitating the formation of coral reefs and shallow marine carbonate deposits. In addition, evaporite or Sabkha deposits, containing mainly gypsum are common and are associated with intertidal conditions on flat topography. The carbonate rich sedimentary sequence underlying the site comprises mainly carbonate cemented siltstone (calcisiltite). Gypsum layers of up to 2.5 m thick are interbedded with the carbonate materials at levels lower than 75 m below ground level. Recent aeolean deposits (sand dunes) form a capping over vast areas of the United Arab Emirates, including the Nakheel Tower site. Owing to different rainfall and groundwater regimes associated with past climates, the dune sands have become partially cemented forming calcarenite beds. At the Nakheel Tower site, the sand dune capping extends about 20 m below ground level.
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