Software for Structural and Dynamic Analysis

Dome of Louvre Abu Dhabi during construction stage (picture: Waagner-Biro)

3D dome model for Louvre Abu Dhabi in RSTAB (screen shot: Dlubal)

Dome of Louvre Abu Dhabi

With the dome of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, a museum planned in the capi-tal of the United Arab Emirates, a new architectural highlight will be com-pleted by 2015. The structure consist-ing 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 Nou-vel. The Austrian company Waagner-Biro 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 pavil-ion 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 av-erage length of 4-5 m each. The spatial grid made of triangles and quadran-gles was developed by Buro Happold.

The structure is supported by four re-settable spherical bearings. It was im-portant to consider their frictional re-sistance and the restoring force of the supports for the modeling.

The loading that acts on the structural analysis model was analyzed inten-sively by Waagner-Biro. They also con-sulted the technical planners about it. For example, the local load transfer has been considered by service mesh-es. 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 nec-essary to camber the structure for mounting. With this, another effect

had to be taken into account in addi-tion 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 caus-es further sagging of the dome.

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: Werk-raum Wien Ingenieure, Vienna, Austria Handel Engineering GmbH, Graz, Austria

Software Dlubal Software GmbH, Tiefenbach, Germany, www.dlubal.com

Designed with Dlubal Software

Waagner-Biro: "A new icon of architectural steel construction is created with the dome of the Louvre Abu Dhabi."