LEADENHALL

Structural Case Study

AR402 - Building Structural System

CATHERINE JENEFA R
101116011
IV Year B Arch - VIII Semester
NIT Trichy
 ● Introduction
○ General Information (Background)
○ Architects/Structural Engineer
○ Building Design
● Body

STRUCTURAL
○ Main Structure System
○ Building Construction
○ Joint detail

OVERVIEW
○ Foundation + Soil
○ Load transfer mechanism
○ Lateral Loads + Resistance
○ Material
○ Structural analysis with multi-frame
data
● Conclusion
● References
Overview
● Project: The Leadenhall Building
● Location: London, UK
● Completed: June 2013
● Architects:Rogers Stirk Harbour +
Partner
● Structural Engineer: Arup
● Height: 225 m (48 stories)
● Gross Internal Area : 84,424 m²
● Primary Use: Office and business
Architects/Structural Engineer
● Richard Rogers
● Born in Florence, Italy in 1933. Graduated from Yale
University in America in 1962. English Architect. Designed the
Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited
(HSBC), Millennium Dome in London. Designed Centre
National d'art et de Culture Georges Pompidou (Centre
Georges Pompidou) with Renzo Piano and Gianfranco
Franchini. One of the most influential architects in the last 30
years. Master of High-Tech building style.
● Engineer and Construction
● LAING O'ROURKE – CONTRACTOR （Team）
Building Design
● Architectural Image :The Cheesegrater.

● The ground floor stilts about 15m in order to provide more communication spaces for people and reduce
the sight block of historical buildings.

● This Cheesegrater not only shows response to the impact on the view of Sir Christopher Wren’s St Paul’s
Cathedral and the potential public realm, but also try to establish a positive communication and
relationships between historical buildings and modern buildings in the site.
Building Design
● A tapering, perimeter-braced
diagrid structure
● Start 2011.10 --end of 2013
● Architects and engineers use
3D model in order to ensure
the construction.
● They’ve run the complete
simulation and “built” the
The Leadenhall Building in a
virtual world 37 times.
Building Design
● Off-site prefabrication
● Prefabricated offsite and assembled in the tightest of spaces
● The total site is only 3 m (10 feet) wider than the building.
● It is not construction but “ Some assembly required” on a monumental scale.
Building Layout

Sunshine Analysis Progress diagram

Function
Building Layout
● The lower levels of the
building
● Recessed for a large public
space
● The office floors
● Rectangular floor plates
● Getting smaller in depth
by 750mm towards the
apex
● Connected to the structure
tube at every floor level
without additional vertical
elements.
Structure
● A tapering, perimeter-braced diagrid structure
● Architects and engineers get rid of the concrete,
and replace it with steel. Floors are only parts
which use concrete. Instead of having a massive
central core, they planned a steel
exposed-skeleton.
● The frame structure encloses the building on all
four sides and is divided longitudinally into eight
large areas, each seven stories high, with
exterior-installed curtain walls with ventilation
function.
● The northmost core tube is designed with
herringbone support to increase its stability while
the rest parts are K-shaped.
Structure
● North core
● The support function areas
● The self–supporting core connects back to the
mainframe
● Not required to be over-clad with fire protection
→ visible steelwork.
Structure
● K-bracing
● On the north-east and north-west corners.
● Secondary stability system
● The bracing transfers lateral loads from all
intermediate floor plates between the nodes back
to the main frame at seven-storey intervals.
Joint detail
● The key point of the structure design is the
design of connection joints of the the external
mega-frame.
● Connections transfer 6,000 tons (forces) in at
least three different directions.
● Typically, six elements come together at each
joint in a variety of angles within the mega
frame
● Prefabricated nodes & Instead of site welding
Joint detail
● The nodes’ bolts are high strength, threaded
pre-tensioned bars up to 76mm in diameter,
whose prestress is less than 200 tons.
● The connections are made within the profile of
the members and transfer their pre stress to the
members’ ends via plated bolt boxes situated
between the flanges of the main steelwork
beams and columns.
● All connections on the mega-frame can be done
with this
● bolt-on "cross" structure without affecting the
exterior
Joint detail
● Engineers designed large 16-20t nodes (see box
below), typically measuring 6m
● × 3m, which connect straight mega frame
members.
● The nodes provide the geometrically complex
transitions between the different elements
through welded joints between carefully
orientated plates.
Soil analysis
● Soil type: Loamy soils with naturally high groundwater.
● Description:
● 'Light' soils have more sand grains and are described as sandy,
while 'heavy' soils have few sand grains but a lot of extremely
small particles and are described as clayey. Loamy soils have a
mix of sand, silt and clay-sized particles and are intermediate in
character. Soils that have a surface layer that is dominantly
organic are described as Peaty.
● In low-lying sites, permeable soils are often affected by high
groundwater that has drained from the surrounding landscape.
They are described as naturally wet.
● Water protection:
● Soils are mostly drained. Shallow groundwater and marginal
ditches to most fields mean that the water resource is vulnerable
to pollution from nutrients, pesticides and wastes applied to the
land
Basement Foundation
● The 14-story 1960s P&O building that previously occupied the
site had a three-story basement, but the new building required
more volume below ground, so a fourth level was introduced.
● To avoid undermining adjacent perimeter structures, the extra
basement level was confined to the site’s central area while the
third basement level foundation slab was designed so that,
together with some minor temporary works, it could be built
first and give support to adjacent structures. This minimized the
temporary works needed to construct the lowest basement story.
● The perimeter mega-frame columns to the east, west and south
sides are supported on new retaining walls cast on the insides of
existing perimeter structures. Large base plates and columns are
cast into the new retaining walls at first or second basement
level, so as not to impact architectural requirements at ground
level.
Load Transfer Mechanism
● Dead load
● Most material used in the
Leadenhall is steel and they
compose the major part of dead
load.
● The total steel using is 18,000
tons.
Load Transfer Mechanism
● The main structure of the
building has only six internal
columns, and the span of the grid
is 16m deep and 10.5m long,
creating such a clear and flexible
floor space.
● The expressed structure,
triangulated mega-frame is
divided into eight proportion,
and each of them works like
what the design team terms
mega-levels of 28m high, each
containing seven floors, apart
from the first, which is five
floors.
Load Transfer Mechanism
● The superstructure arrangement led to very high loads under
the mega-frame at the edge of the site, as well as under the
six internal columns.
● The loads are supported by large diameter bored piles
founded in the London clay.
● Because of the mega-frame located at the very edge of the
site, these large-perimeter piles must be eccentric to the
building.
● The mega-frame are linked to the internal column piles via a
2.7-meter-thick raft slab covering most of the site.
● Because of the building shape,this thickness reduces to the
south where the column loads are considerably less.
● As the advantage of the tapering, perimeter-braced
● diagrid structure, loads reduce from the basement level to
the top level. In this way the whole structure system can bear
more loads.
Lateral design-seismic load
World earthquake danger zone

London
Lateral design-seismic load
● The PGA（peak ground acceleration）in london is 0.02 -0.04.
● Converting it to US. seismic zone is zone 0.
● it means London is more safer than Texas about happening earthquake.

1. Disadvantage of seismic

● The bottom overhead construction in ground floor, no diaphragma in

over 4 stories high.
● No shear-wall

2. Advantage of seismic

● Steel is good material to be stable in Short-period earthquake.

● This structure have the natural seismic Joint
● The exterior truss tube.
Lateral design-wind load
● The most important wind is from SSW and north west side and It
makes to structural design for wind load resistance in this direction.
However, the wind speed is not too much, convert to MPH is 33.5.
● v=15m/s
● ρ =1.2kg/m3
● pd/Lw=135 Pa （N/m2）
Lateral design-wind load
● The Tapered and inward sloped facade is good way to
reduce wind loads.
● Wind speed will be decomposed and part of it does not
work on wind load press.
● The reduce of load is more than 2%, not too much but
useful.
Lateral design-wind load-conclusion
● Both of seismic and wind load are not the primal design
concern for London is not in the major seismic zone and
there are no big wind here.
● The exterior truss provide a very stiff ring or tube about
building so that they have the capacity to carry any
direction lateral loads. Especially in the leadenhall
building, the diagrids connected with the horizontal floor
beams generate stable triangles.
● The tarped facade reduce the wind load.
Material
Steel:

● 11252 pieces of steel

● 18000 tonnes
● sprayed prior to site assembly with a marine standard,
epoxy intumescent coating in layers of 3-12mm,
depending on the thickness of the steel
● Structure contains 500 tons of paint
● 90 minutes of fire protection
Material
Precast concrete components:

● precast planks above Level 5

● 150-millimeter-deep concrete slab over
● 700-millimeter-deep fabricated steel beams.
Summary
● The Leadenhall Building seems to be a miracle in
construction history for its unique building method. 80% of
the elements
● pre-assembled off site (DFMA). This included integration of
trades such as for the North Core tables, and the
development of a new lightweight precast flooring solution.
● This building is a great example to build a tall skyscraper in
a limited area. A ladder, stair- shape solve the problem easily
and create a breathing public for London city.
● Like many modern buildings, environmentally sustainability
is an important part during the design process. Inside the
building, all Modric stainless steel door fittings made from
62% recycled material, but also 95% of the material can be
recycled at the end of the products life.
Multiframe
● Wind load = 5.6 kN/m
● Mmax = 415.44 kN-m
● Smax = 818.8 kN
Dead load
REFERENCES
●http://global.ctbuh.org/resources/papers/download/19-case-study-the-leadenhall-building-london.pdf
●http://www.archreport.com.cn/show-6-3299-1.html
●http://www.iarch.cn/thread-19033-1-1.html
●http://www.britishland.com/sustainability/blogs/articles/2012/leadenhall-building-boosts-jobs-in-bolton
●https://www.steelconstruction.info/Leadenhall,_London
●https://www.archdaily.com/547041/the-leadenhall-building-rogers-stirk-harbour-partners
●http://www.landis.org.uk/soilscapes/
●https://www.theleadenhallbuilding.com/architecture/construction-overview/
●https://www.rsh-p.com/projects/the-leadenhall-building/
●http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2014/11/06/two-bolts-have-fallen-out-of-the-leadenhall-building/
●http://bbs.co188.com/thread-9316395-1-1.html
●https://www.researchgate.net/figure/295399232_fig6_The-wind-rose-diagram-of-Brixton-London-Source-the-authors-afterWindFindercom-GmbH
●https://emergency.fsu.edu/hazards/earthquakes
●https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wind-load-d_1775.html
●https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT4VFGUk-b8
●http://khan.princeton.edu/khanHancock.html
●http://www.baidu.com/s?ie=utf-8&f=8&rsv_bp=0&rsv_idx=1&tn=baidu&wd=%E7%90%86%E6%9F%A5%E5%BE%B7%C2%B7%E7%BD%97%E6%9D%B
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