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Designed with Dlubal Software
Dome of Louvre Abu Dhabi
With the dome of the Louvre Abu
Dhabi, a museum planned in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, a new
architectural highlight will be completed by 2015. The structure consisting of steel has a diameter of 180 m
and covers the new local branch of the
Louvre Museum in Paris.
The new museum was designed by
the famous French architect Jean Nouvel. The Austrian company WaagnerBiro from Vienna has been responsible
for the structural calculation and the
construction of the dome.
Structure
The dome rests on only four support
points arranged at a distance of 110
m, which gives the impression that the
roof hovers above the museum pavilion below. The intention of the roof
covering consisting of several layers of
aluminum sections is to create similar
lighting conditions as they occur in an
oriental bazaar where woven mats
cover the narrow streets. In this way,
the dome's supporting structure is
visually pushed into the background.
The structural system is based on a
space frame consisting of approx.
11, 000 member elements with an average length of 4-5 m each. The spatial
grid made of triangles and quadrangles was developed by Buro Happold.
Dome of Louvre Abu Dhabi during construction stage (picture: Waagner-Biro)
had to be taken into account in addition to the deformation components
from the self-weight. Over time, the
tolerances in the bolt connections of
the members will lead to a sliding of
the connections, and this in turn causes further sagging of the dome.
Waagner-Biro: "A new icon of
architectural steel construction is
created with the dome of the
Louvre Abu Dhabi."
The following companies participated
in the construction:
Building owner
TDIC, Abu-Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Architect
Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Paris, France,
www.jeannouvel.com
Geometry and structure
Buro Happold, www.burohappold.com
Specialist Contractor
Waagner-Biro Stahlbau AG, Vienna,
Austria, www.waagner-biro.com
Structural analysis + final planning
Waagner-Biro Stahlbau AG, Vienna,
Austria; Consulting engineers: Werkraum Wien Ingenieure, Vienna, Austria
Handel Engineering GmbH, Graz,
Austria
Software
Dlubal Software GmbH, Tiefenbach,
Germany, www.dlubal.com
The structure is supported by four resettable spherical bearings. It was important to consider their frictional resistance and the restoring force of the
supports for the modeling.
The loading that acts on the structural
analysis model was analyzed intensively by Waagner-Biro. They also consulted the technical planners about it.
For example, the local load transfer
has been considered by service meshes. When service technicians step on
these meshes, the adjacent members
must absorb the additional transverse
loading.
The target is to get an ideal dome
shape without any visible sag when it
will be finished. Therefore, it was necessary to camber the structure for
mounting. With this, another effect
Software for Structural and Dynamic Analysis
3D dome model for Louvre Abu Dhabi in RSTAB (screen shot: Dlubal)