A 100-meter-tall tower has been designed in the new Carlsberg City area in Copenhagen using probably the best structural design software in the world, FEM-Design by StruSoft.
The impressive tower is the first of multiple high-rise buildings that will characterise the Carlsberg City. The tower is a part of section 8, which is the first part of the Carlsberg City master plan. Section 8 consists of approximately 100,000m2, where the tower contains 16,000m2 of apartments and classrooms.
Making the structural software behave similarly to the real structure is crucial for Prefab Concrete Structures
We met civil engineer Daniel Halberg, from Ramboll DK, the principle Engineering Firm for the Carlsberg City project. In this short interview we discuss FEA calculation tools and procedures on big scale projects.
“At Ramboll, we have a range of finite element analysis (FEA) software. It is decided that buildings mainly consisting of concrete structures must be calculated with FEM-Design. It is easy to control the geometrical conditions, as the connections between plates and wall, making the structural system behave similarly to the real structure. This is crucial for all prefabricated concrete structures. Furthermore, the mesh-generator is of high quality, and it is important that we are able to design plates using cracked section analysis”.
46 x Load Combinations
FEM-Design was used to determine the load transfer from columns and walls for the Carlsberg tower. 46 x load combinations were defined and the obtained results were used for further detailing. To achieve a good estimation of the underground behaviour, nonlinear calculations were used. Due to the 46 x load combinations, this iteration method represents a challenge for regular computers. Thus, Ramboll uses a powerful computer that has been bought for the purpose of calculating large models.
We asked Daniel about the extent to which Ramboll used FEM-Design results for this project.
“Well, for the combinations that apply to the serviceability limit state, we have made estimations of the global displacement and frequencies. The frequency shapes and masses extracted from the FEM-Design model have formed the basis for the estimation of dynamic comfort”.
Ramboll DK has also used StruSoft FEM-Design to calculate the stabilising walls for other structures in the Carlsberg City.
Besides Carlsberg City, Ramboll DK has also used FEM-Design for other projects, like the Hotel and Conference Centre Malmö Live and the New Niels Bohr building containing 45,000 m2 of research facilities.
