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Category 1: Buildings
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IMEC Tower - Leuven, Belgium
SE
Owner
IMEC vzw
Architect
Baumschlager & Eberle
General Contractor
Besix
Engineering Office
Ingenieursbureau Jan Van Aelst - GAMACO
Construction Period 01/2010 - 01/2014
The IMEC Tower consists of 16 above-ground floors (12,522 m²) and
4 underground levels of car parks. The space is used as offices and
laboratories. The typical floors of the tower consist of 2-way cantilevered
post-tensioned plates supported by 2 cores.
SCIA Engineer was used to study and design the concrete reinforcement
of the core walls. These walls are full of openings and doorways and the
“integration strips” tool was useful when designing the reinforcements. The
main structural difficulty of the tower was caused by the interruption of one
of the cores at the 6th floor which generates high internal forces in the walls.
Furthermore, the design process had to take into account the execution
methodology. In order to limit the formwork and strut costs, work
proceeded in the following manner:
• The structure was built up to level 9, in a classical way (on shutterings
and props), but concrete was poured in the doors placed in the second
core, between levels 6 and 9.
• Shutterings were removed.
• The structure was built up to the roof. At this stage, the walls between
levels 6 and 9 were acting as a cantilever.
• Finally, the walls at levels 6 to 9 were broken down in accordance with
the architectural layout and the necessary doorways in the walls.
Contact
Renaud Bertin
Address Place de l’Université 25
1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Website
The design office GAMACO Consultant Engineers SA has more than 25
years of experience with construction projects, renovations, civil engineer
works, industrial constructions and more generally with all building
designs and structural stability.
Our search for structural optimum has, over the years, resulted in
developing a thorough expertise which is today internationally recognised
in the field of post-tensioned concrete, particularly in building applications.
Gamaco Consultant Engineers SA
