MEGASTRUCTURES

WHAT IS MEGASTRUCTURE?

• It is a very large structure

• is a very large artificial object, although the limits of precisely how large vary
considerably
PALM ISLAND IN
DUBAI
The Palm Islands are the three largest man-made islands in the world. Construction on the “Eighth
Wonder of the World” began in May, 2002 off the coast of Dubai. It is expected to be one of the
world’s top tourist destinations.
Each of the islands (Palm Jumeirah, Palm Jebel Ali, and Palm Deira) are being built in the shape of a
date palm tree consisting of a trunk, a crown with fronds, and surrounded by a crescent island that
acts as a breakwater. The islands will support luxury hotels, freehold residential villas, unique water
homes, shoreline apartments, marinas, water theme parks, restaurants, shopping malls, sports
facilities, health spas, cinemas and various diving sites. The Palm Jumeirah (the smallest of the three)
will primarily be a retreat and residential area.
DURABILITY
BUDGET
 PURPOSE
•
The Palm Islands are an artificial archipelago(a chain or cluster of islands)
in Dubai, United Arab Emirates one of the major commercial and residential
infrastructure. Crown prince Shekh Mahamad bin rashid ahmad 2 wants to
increase tourists to Dubai. He want to make Dubai No. 1 luxurious tourist
destination in the world. 5 million tourist visit annually and prince wants to
increase it by 15
 PROBLEMS
• Environmentalists have criticized many Dubai megaprojects, but perhaps
none moreso than the Palm Islands. The massive dredging required to build
the island has drastically changed the wave, temperature, and erosion
patterns in the Persian Gulf, and a whole square mile of coral was killed.
TAIPEI 101
Taipei 101 was designed to resemble a bamboo shoot, rising upwards in eight sections (a lucky
number in Chinese) with walls angled outward at seven degrees. Like a slender stalk of bamboo, the
record-breaking tower was designed to be both strong and flexible – bendable, but unbreakable
 DURABILITY
• Taipei 101’s strength begins in its roots, 380 concrete piles driven 80 metres
through the island’s thick clay sediment to reach solid bedrock. The building
is widest at its foundation, narrowing at a five-degree angle for 25 floors
before arriving at the first of the eight identical sloped sections. The tower’s
core stability comes from eight forged steel megacolumns, each measuring
3.001×2.401 and filled with concrete. The megacolumns are trussed to the
building’s outward-sloping frame with ductile steel braces that bend in an
earthquake
 DURABILITY
• At 700,000 tons of steel, concrete and glass, Taipei 101 is actually light for its
height. To steady the tower in gale-force winds, it’s equipped with an
internal pendulum called a “passive tuned mass damper’, whose massive
weight (660 tons) pulls instinctively in the opposite direction of swaying. The
result is not only one of the tallest, but perhaps the most stable building in the
world, designed to withstand a 2,500-year seismic shock.
BUDGET
PURPOSE
PROBLEMS
MILLAU BRIDGE IN
FRANCE
With a structural height of 343 m, Millau Viaduct is famous as the tallest bridge in the world. It is also
renowned for its design, which was considered impossible to construct on its inception, and for being
one of the greatest achievements in engineering.
 DURABILITY
• The viaduct at Millau, designed by the celebrated British architect Lord
Foster of Thames Bank, is, at its highest point, 60ft higher than the Eiffel Tower.
It resembles three and a half suspension bridges, chained together on seven
immense pillars, striding in a slight curve for one and a half miles between
two high plateaux. The tallest pylon over the road-deck reaches 1,125 feet
(343 metres) above the valley.
 BUDGET
• Designed by Michel Virlogeux and Norman Foster, Millau Viaduct was
constructed in around 3 years with a cost of €394 million.
 PURPOSE
• It Links Two Limestone Plateaus
• Viaduct is derived from the Latin via for road and ducere, to lead. A viaduct is a
bridge consisting of a number of short spans for carrying a road over a valley,
river etc. Millau is a commune in southern France located at the confluence of
the Tarnand Dourbie rivers. Millau Viaduct extends across the Tarn River valley
linking two limestone plateaus, the Causse du Larzac and the Causse Rouge
 PURPOSE
• It Was Constructed To Solve Traffic Problem In The Tarn Valley
• The plan to construct a bridge spanning the Tarn valley was considered as early
as 1987. It was due to the fact that there was heavy traffic on the route from
Paris to Spain in the holiday season and before the construction of Millau
Viaduct, it had to descend into the Tarn River valley and pass along the route
nationale N9 near the town of Millau, causing heavy congestion. The decision to
construct the bridge was made in October 1991
 PROBLEM
• Fixing of slab
• Climate
• Access bending moment
 REFERENCE
• THE PALM ISLAND
• https://sites.google.com/site/palmislandsimpact/general-
information/construction-of-the-islands

• VIADUCT AT MILLAU
• https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-mother-of-all-
bridges-535416.html