46 Category 1: Buildings 1 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 www.gamaco.eu 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
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