THE PETRONAS TWIN TOWERS AND HIGH-PERFORMANCE CONCRETE

Twin 451.9 m (1482 ft) tall buildings just completed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia use high performance concrete to good advantage. Each of the PETRONAS Twin Towers contains approximately 218,000 square m (2.3 million square ft) in 88 floors, as part of the 1.7 million square m (18 million square ft) Kuala Lumpur City Center mixed-use development. Cast-in-place high strength concrete for the core, perimeter columns and ring beams provide economical vertical load carrying capacity, stiff lateral load resistance, and inherent damping for occupant comfort. Using higher concrete strength than usual in the area keeps column sizes small enough for good real estate appeal. Steel beams on metal deck slabs provide efficient, economical and quickly-erected long span floors which are easily adaptable for future changes in openings and loadings. As part of the first large scale use of 80 MPa concrete in the area, extensive tests were performed to determine appropriate mixtures and their properties of strength, stiffness, creep and shrinkage. A proprietary creep and shrinkage program following published formulae gave good agreement with test data after adjusting for first-day strains. The construction process included specific methods to compensate for shortening and maintaining required floor-to-floor heights.

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Features: Figures; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: p. 329-350

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 00746556
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: SP 172-18
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Mar 18 2001 12:00AM