H290 Civil Engineering : International Recognition Leading to Investme

Introduction:

The study relates to Burj Khalifa formerly known as Burj Dubai before its inauguration. The name means Khalifa towers in English which makes a mega tallest multistory building in the United Arab Emirates. The structure forms the highest building ever on the planet with a height of 829.8 meters. The building is located at Sheikh Moham Rashid Boulevard, United Arab Emirates. The reason and purpose of building Burj Khalifa were solely grounded on government judgment to branch out from an economy that is oil-based to one that relies on provision and tourism. Majority of government representatives considered the project since it could attract more international recognition leading to investment (Baker, 2007)

 Figure 1: site map of Burj Khalifa.

The building was contracted by Samsung C&T Besix of South Korea and developed by Emaar Properties and Adrian Smith. The construction began in 2004 and exterior completed after five years, and publicly launched in 2010 as part of the fresh progress called Downtown Dubai. The project type was infrastructure with a contract type of built only of construction value US$3.2m.

Risks to health and safety

Burj Khalifa forms one of the largest and tallest construction structures in the world making risks involved become unmatched. Due to this, design risk factors will be majorly analyzed and discussed. The major risks on design factors highly relate to factors involving height, workers and contractors operational at height, materials being taken and conveyed at height and the kind of most if not all physical kind at height, for example, wind load and heat energy resulting from the sun. How this risks would be tackled would be added to the building design since it was wanted to be the tallest in the world (Aldred, 2010)

Identification of risk.

Whenever it involves construction projects as hefty as Burj Khalifa, whenever a threat is not detected in initial stages of the construction course, the risk may become a challenge for the construction process and future usage of the construction structure. The structure might not fulfill its necessities and goals which includes value and period of completion. The main role of peril management is geared to reduce the chances of occurrence of undesirable effects on the construction scheme (Baker, 2008)

In order to implement this, one needs first to pinpoint and locate the origin of the impact. In relation to risk handling, as soon as the risks have been allocated and recognized, they are categorized and grouped to improve a better understanding of the risks. This enhances a better planning process and criteria for the risks later and may allow for future use as references. In the Burj Khalifa construction project, there exist various varying risk outlines that are capable of being categorized. Nevertheless, in the case of this study, the perils would be related to key risks concerning the design phase and construction stage of the project. The perils in the mentioned categories include the following:

Design phase

• Materials and their durability(Jafferji, 2016)
• The sun and its effects
• Location of the intended construction building
• Alteration of design impact on budget and time
• Wind strength of high buildings
• Gravitational force effects on elevated buildings

Construction phase

• Transport of supplies to high heights
• Employees working at high floors of the building in construction
• Objects falling from distanced heights
• Risk of collapsing during construction (Ta, 2009)
• Exposure of workers to radiations from the sun
• Danger as a result of machinery operations at the site

With an aim of limiting the possibility of these risks from occurring, the Dubai government enacted rules and regulations to be considered during the construction process of the Burj Khalifa structure. The legislative laws included the following:

• According to the work safety and health duties, the individual with management role and handling of the workstation must guarantee that the mode of accessing and leaving the workstation and any issue coming up from the workplace is lacking peril to health and safety to any individual (Kijewski, 2012)
• The head contractor for the construction project must be aware or informed of the work health and safety duties that apply to PCBUs that carry out construction work and specific roles that are imposed on the head contractor in the given industry.
• The head contractor in a construction site must make manage and control work health and safety risks accompanied by the specific work. In addition, he or she must ensure no and limited unauthorized entry or access to the work site.
• The above outlined legislative construction site regulations were fully implemented as it was a basic requirement before commencing of the project. Contrary to the implementation of regulations, a limited occurrence of the risks was experienced in a manageable manner. Controlled environmental pollution was still experienced as air and water resources were occasionally polluted during the construction process

Civil engineering context

The internal measure of project success is whether the project achieves its original goal of the establishment. The best evaluation of success is a measure of the scheme based on three viewpoints namely: cost, duration, and value. In this scenario, Burj Khalifa construction scheme can also be rated by the above method of evaluation. It is thus likely to measure the cost and duration difference in amid original plan and real outcome by the earned value analysis to realize the impression of the project. In relation to cost and budget of the project; original planned cost of the Burj Khalifa project was $876million dollars whereas the finishing cost amounted to roughly $1.5billion dollars (Irwin, 2008)

Due to this, it is important to find out a reason as to why there exists a wide difference between budgeted cost and the final construction cost of the project. First, a rise in prices of raw materials e.g. iron, cement, and other construction materials. Second, change of design as the concluding height of the construction was a hundred meters past the initial design. Burj Khalifa is the tallest building structure on the planet. Engineers, architects, and workers turned to building information modeling application software to accomplish the whole construction workflow, minimizing on time and money wastage, improving communication, and decreasing waste with an aim of delivering projects safely, on time and on budget.

To enable, manage and dispense a fully complete and information-rich 3D model, designers are considering building information modeling. The application software interfaces with other clarifications and manufacturing machinery, enhancing workflow and limiting errors. The software enabled Eversendai to model the Burj Khalifa structural behavior during strong wind and earthquakes, reallocate the gravity load to the structures extremities, succeed the floor framing system and advance the highly long lasting solid foundation to safeguard against water and destructive soil conditions (Parker, 2013)

Effects of Burj Khalifa construction project work on the community

As with most construction works in life, they usually constitute both negative and positive impacts on the normal life of the neighboring community as a whole. Assessing and analyzing the effects always form the first procedure in moving forward and implementing a construction project. After applying this, it’s better implementing strategies to major on positive impacts on the entire community. The following are some of the construction project impacts of Burj Khalifa on the community;

Positive impacts

• Creation of economic boom- There existed new job opportunities for local business owners, laborers and service providers i.e. transportation of materials to the working site.
• Improvement on transport network- The neighboring community benefitted from the sudden improvement of roads accessing the work site to facilitate easy transport.
• Post construction benefits- The local community benefits from income generation through maintenance and repair of the project, cleaning services, utility and management and various business opportunities.

Negative impacts

• Environmental impacts- Construction work does not only result in harmful emissions to the atmosphere on the global scale but also impacts the local community.
• Water quality- Construction work affects community water quality as pollutants are emitted to water supplies.
• Soil erosion- Soil erosion often does not occur strictly at the construction site but also downstream which poses a serious threat to the community (Aitcin, 2015)

Risks to the public

The following include hazards that posed risks to the neighboring public in general:

1. Falling objects- This was minimized by making sure objects did not fall outer the site boundary.
2. Delivery and other workstation vehicles- It was made certain pedestrians were not struck by vehicles entering or exiting the site.
3. Opening and quarries- People could be injured if they fall into diggings, manholes, stairwells or from open floor ends hence need for putting up barriers or protections (RPP MAPM, 2012)

Dependability of the project on the public

Burj Khalifa forms the highest structure on the planet. At the top, is the Dubai mall where visitors buy tickets at the welcome area as they enjoy several interactive features such as the Dubai then and now, traveling at 10 meters per second speed and many more. Burj Khalifa has got also a variety of leisure and retail facilities, parking facilities, offices, the club, pavilion, park and water features. In general, Burj Khalifa forms a major economy block in Dubai and has been source of revenue and income to both the government and the public as a whole (Choi, 2015)

Conclusion and Recommendations

In every project, risk management whose main role is to reduce the possibility of occurrence of negative effects on the construction scheme must be properly managed. Here, peril determination is the most crucial process as it forms the first stage to understanding all the perils relating to the construction project. Burj Khalifa forms one of the largest and tallest construction structures in the world making risks involved become unmatched. Therefore whenever a risk is not recognized in early stages of the construction procedure, then it may prove challenging for the construction and future consumption of the construction structure. With an aim of limiting the possibility of these risks from occurring, the Dubai government enacted rules and regulations to be considered during the construction process of the Burj Khalifa structure (Feys, 2015) 

One of which asserts that, according to the work safety and health regulation, the individual with supervision role and control of the workstation must ensure that the mode of accessing and leaving the workplace and any issue originating from the workplace is without perils to health and safety to any being. With regards to the aforementioned findings it's in order to accredit the level of health and safety management of the project in its entirety since it meets the legislative construction site regulations, a basic requirement before the commencement of the project which requires the head contractor in a construction site to make, manage and control work health and safety risks accompanied with the specific work. In addition, he or she must ensure no and limited unauthorized entry or access to the work site (Nehdi, 2013)

References:

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