The Burj Khalifa, as the tallest free standing building in the world, posed many challenges during the design phase. As a building with cladding composed mainly of a unitized glazed curtain wall system in a scorching desert, keeping the building cool was a main concern. The question was how to do this efficiently and effectively? A solution was devised using an innovative cooling method that involves plate heat exchangers and a thermal ice-storage facility that produces ice slurry during the cooler times, or at night. This ice slurry is stored in a tank, and during the day, or the hotter times, the plate heat exchangers, produced by Alfa Laval, release the cold energy through the pipelines, cooling the building. There are two main benefits of using this ice storage solution: substantial energy savings, and it only requires a fraction of the space needed from conventional cooling equipment.

 

The relative magnitudes of the total hourly heating loads are XXX and the cooling loads are XXX.

Annual heating costs for the building, according to estimates, are relatively XXX total, including XX from cooling loads and XXX from heating loads.

 

After having completed the senior year HVAC courses, I still think this building would be a difficult building to analyze for a few reasons. The main complication with this building is its shape. The building has a spiraling “Y” shaped plan with steps, and can be described as a buttressed core. “Each wing of the wings buttresses the others via a six-sided central core, or hexagonal hub.” (http://www.burjkhalifa.ae/en/TheTower/Structures.aspx#Mechanical, Electrical & Plumbing) This central core provides structural stability through torsional resistance and with high performance concrete walls. However, the spiraling stepped facade leads to semi-complex heat load calculations. Another difficulty is simply the height of the building; as the tallest building in the world, common applications used for load calculations are not formatted to perform calculations for buildings of such height. However, some things that would make performing calculations simpler include the unitized-curtain wall system, because this makes everything uniform. There is also a decent amount of information about the building published due to its popularity and interest in the built world, which would definitely assist in calculations.