'Master of
Skyscraper'
Samsung E&C Soars to new heights and rewrites the history of skyscraper

The would-be tallest building in the world is now being built by Samsung Engineering & Construction, the construction division of Samsung Corporation. In Dubai where various stunning projects are already in their full swing, Samsung is catching the eye of the world by building the Burj Dubai, over 700m high, more than 160-story skyscraper with the gross floor area of 15,000 pyeong. The current tallest one is TFC 101 in Taipei, Taiwan which has 101 stories with the height of 508m.
This 900 billion won project was announced in 2004 and many eminent constructors from various countries participated but to be outbidden by Samsung E&C. The bidders include Takenaka (Japan) & Al Habtoor (UAE) & M&R (South Africa) Consortium, Nasa Multiplex (Australia) & Ascon (UAE) Consortium, Taisei (Japan) & ACC (UAE) Consortium, Naboodah Laing (England) & Hiphing (Hong Kong) Consortium, Balfourbeatty (England) CCC(Greece) & Paul Y (Hong Kong) Consortium, Grocon (Australia) & DCE(UAE) Consortium, etc. The client of this project, Emaar Properties was established in 1997 and the government of the United Arab Emirates owns 40% of it. And Samsung, under a consortium with Besix, a subsidiary of Belgium holding company "Societe Belge des Beton"and Arabtec of Dubai, was selected as a contractor, proving itself as the most "capable"skyscraper builder in the world. Under this Samsung·Besix·Arabtec Consortium, Samsung is responsible for entire construction procedures and technologies as the leading company, Besix will be in charge of the project execution and Arabtec will provide the necessary materials and manpower.
So, is it fair enough to call Samsung the "master of skyscraper"? Quite yes. Though this could possibly be the tallest building in the world, Samsung E&C is no stranger to skyscrapers. The current tallest buildings are also the works of Samsung; as for TFC 101 it did finishing work and for the Petronas Twin Towers (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), which are 88-story buildings that hold another record height of 452m, the company did the frame work. When the Burj Dubai is completed, Samsung will be the only company who has taken part in building all of the three tallest skyscrapers in the world.
However, the reason why the United Arab Emirate picked Samsung is not only because of such experiences of it, but also because it is fully qualified with core techniques required for ultra-multistory building construction.

Concentration of cutting-edge technologies
Building a high-rise skyscraper that soars to a dizzying height of more than 400m above the city skyline demands the builder to be armed with several special and essential technologies.
The most critical one is the Core Wall frame system. 'Core Wall'is like the backbone of the entire building, which has very important function in terms of both position and function. It is a kind of the symbol of skyscraper. The thickness of the core wall is 0.6~1.3m, and elevators, rest rooms, stairs, electricity and pipe lines are placed around it.
There are two key factors in the core wall work; one is that builder has to make it go up straight while sustaining the weight of the building. In order to make the core wall to support the weight of the building, Samsung uses high-strength concrete of 800kg/cm2, which withstands even the ultra-strong earthquake of seven degree intensity. Using high-strength concrete, the thickness of the wall and pillar can be efficiently reduced, which results in the increased usable area.
Second factor is the liquidity of concrete. The concrete has to have the liquidity as well as the strength. The reason why the liquidity is important in skyscraper construction is that the concrete has to be shot up to the work place on high floors. Samsung developed a special mixing technology for early manifestation of strength, hydration heat management and pumping to higher floor. In order to pump up the concrete to the higher floors, two equipments are needed: pump and concrete placing boom. When the pump shoots up the concrete, the placing boom delivers it, like an arm of a human body, to the place where it should be cast. There are a total of four placing booms in the site and all include mold. This is a new technology introduced by Samsung E&C for the first time in the world.
Mold is one of the important parts of concrete work. In the Burj Dubai construction, when the building of one floor is completed, the mold can go up to next floor by using hydraulic jack, without the help of tower crane, which is called Self-Climbing Form. With this technology, the contractor can reduce the cost thanks to the shortened term of works and waiting time. In this project, the size of the mold is the biggest in the world, showing advanced and unparalleled level of Samsung's technology. Director Sin Hyeok, manager of mold, said, "Appropriate management of mold is the essence of the reduction of the term of work. And designing optimal mold suitable to the characteristic of the building and the construction site is the key to success."Another key technology is the management of lifting. Builder has to precisely plan the allocation of various materials. By using specially made tower cranes and hoists, builder makes a plan and controls how it move and place huge quantity of materials to the planned positions at the same time. Samsung E&C is adopting the same administration system of physical distribution as they used when it built Tower Palace, a complex of high-rise(the maximum 238.8m) apartment & store building in the Southern part of Seoul which was completed in October 2002 to be the second highest building in Korea. While the company uses ordinary tower cranes for the parking lots and the lower part of the building, it uses three special tower cranes for the Core Wall and the higher floors. With the height of 48m and booms with 55m long, these cranes are attached on the Core Wall, not installed on the ground, and jump according to the height of the working floor. Since the height of the Burj Dubai is over 700m, the height of the steel wire rope that lifts materials is more than 800m. Unlike ordinary cranes which has to stop working if the speed of wind exceeds 20m/sec, those special ones can stand the wind with speed of 55m/sec. The company has been kept it secret, the know-how of how it attach there special cranes on the Core Wall.
But, it's not only about the 'Iifting of things' but also about the 'Iifting of people.'In the peak time of construction, maximum 3,500 ~ 4,000 people work in the building at the same time. And each of those people has to be able to get one's working spot within one hour after arriving at work. And the required materials for each worker have to be positioned properly in order to save the working hour. Also other subsidiary facilities like restaurant or rest room for workers have to be space-efficiently installed within the building. Samsung E&C uses hoists to move light materials and workers; one of the seven hoists runs up to 112th floors (400m), a record high (the existing record was 396m). Three of them run up to 100th floor and two from 100th to 139th. And from 139th to 160, 1 hoist runs within the building. "To optimally compound various techniques to fit the characteristics of the structure and operate in effective ways, thereby obtaining the maximum efficiency is another key factor of the competitiveness in our equipment technology."said Kim Chang-sun, director for construction and special equipment.

Absolute 'Straightness'
The client of Burj Dubai asked Samsung E&C to make it in perfect straightness. It means that the error tolerance of this building is 25mm.
In a building with the height of over 700m, the subtle contraction of the lower part is inevitable due to the excessive load. This 'vertical displacement'is about 37cm in case of a 700m building. So, the builder should take it into consideration, and also one more fact, which makes it even more complicated, that the size displacement differs in the walls and the pillars of the Core Wall.
To check and adjust the subtle differences in height, the company utilizes the GPS (Global Positioning System), which is also for the first time in the industry.
There is another one check, the 'horizontal displacement.'This phenomenon only happens in high-rise building more than 80 stories. These displacements matters because of the two elevators in the building: observatory elevator and one for fire-fighting. Both elevators have to be able to get to the highest floor at once, which requires perfectly straight elevator boxes. Especially, the observatory elevator of Burj Dubai will have the speed of 10m/sec. It means that it goes up 600m per one minute.
With such brilliant and whacking technologies, Samsung E&C completes one story for every three days. This is more than double of the speed in case of ordinary building ― one story per 7~8 days. The head of the construction team Gang Sang-gu said, "No matter which country or region we work in, we make the optimum three-day cycle for construction of 1 story."The company had scheduled to finish the entire construction process with 47 months. At present, the process is going on a little bit faster than the schedule; by the end of 2005, 17 stories will be finished. By the end of 2006, 90~100 stories will be done and the frame work is expected to finish by March 2008. Entire construction will be completed by the end of 2008.

Focus on lucrative skyscraper construction
In skyscraper construction industry, it is expected orders in the total amount of $ 40 billion will be issued by 2010. Samsung E&C had declared this business as one of their main businesses and prepared this boom. At the end of 2003, the company organized a 'Skyscraper team'to develop new technologies and refine on its accumulated know-how.
The United Arab Emirates Ambassador Abdulla Mohammed Al-Ma'ainah mentioned in the interview with NewsWorld that, with the experience in the Burj Dubai project, Samsung E&C will have competitive edge in the future skyscraper market in the UAE. "In the field of skyscraper construction, there are not many companies that have the 'cost competitiveness'based on the power of technology. We are the current leader in this industry and also sure to keep our advantageous status with the competitiveness we acquire from the Burj Dubai construction,"said Baek Seung-Jin, executive director of Samsung E&C. nw

An artist's conception of the Burj Dubai