A TOUR GUIDE OF HIGH-RISE BUILDINGS: TORRES C

Structural Elements

General Data

Upper head
stella
na

Upper head

Pase
o de

la Ca

The upper head is an element strongly stressed.

For this reason the structure is very rigid but not
slender.

Figure 1.

Plaza de

Pas

eo d

e Re

cole
tos

Located in Plaza de
in the meeting of Paseo de
la Castellana and Paseo
de Recoletos. This place is
Madrid's downtown, where
the
most
important
buildings and streets are.

Prestressed reinforcement

It has two different parts:

- Four cantilevers as a prolongation of the core
walls. The cantilevers are 60 cm thick and
their depth varies from 5m to 3m.
-Four edge beams that are supported by the
cantilevers with a constant depth of 3 m and
a thickness of 50 cm.

Cantilevers

All these beams are prestressed in three stages.

The hollow of the upper head is reserved for

the engine room.

Figure 4. 3D view

Edge beams

Prestressed concrete ties

Standard storie and core

Architectural Conception
Architectural design
following ideas:

is

determined

from

Metallic cantilever

Central core

where the slab supports

Dimensions: 7m x 6,8 m; Wall thickness: 0,6 m

Place where the stiffness is concentrated.
Used for vertical communications and halls.
It has 7 gaps to go in every storey

the

Emergency
stairs hollow

Reinforcement
Top face reinforcement
concentration area
Bottom and top face
reinforcement concentration area

Need to a better traffic organization in the

parking area.

Core

In addition, a compression slab will be

constituted over the waffle slab. It will
have a two way reinforcement.

Tower

Structural independence between the building and

the basement.
Interior flexibility.

Continuous waffle slab

Is all built in concrete because:

- 25 cm thick
- Due to the slab continuity some
embedment effects appears. The
efficiency of the ties is reduced on
the lower storeyes
- Bending moments increase in the
lower beams. At that location, more
reinforcement need to be located

18.90m

Similar construction time.

Fire protection.

Better behavior in temperature expansions.

Slabs are continuous along all the surface.
i the
reason why they work as an embeddeb beam, even
though they are simply supported at the core.
In suspension buildings the bigger the ratio h1/a
(where h1 referst to suspended heigth; a refer to
building side) is, the less effective the ties are.
i
why number of stories is limited.
Therefore, lower beams work almost as embedded
beams.
"To begin building a house from the roof"
Figure 2.

Figure 3.

Colon Towers were presented at the

World Congress on Prestressed Concrete
in Architecture and Public Works held in
New York in 1975 as the building erected
as the most advanced tecnology
available in Spain at the time.
In 1989 the building was reformed,
adding a new colored grass
a
external fire scape between the towers
and an upper closing with the form of a
plug.

Upper head bending moments

Figure 5.

20.90m

Spandrel beam

Prestressed concrete ties

Torre
de
Colon
ties
are
aproximately square (42 cm x 42
cm). Inside they have a core (27
cm x 10 cm) where prestressed
cables are located.

Why prestressed
concrete cable?

They were prefabricated before.

By lengths of 5,9 m (corresponding
to the heigth of two storeys).
Except for the first one, which
lengths is 6,15 m.

Structural Behavior to Vertical Loads

Slab
5,9 m

Steel plate 5 mm

The joint with the upper head is a neoprene support in

order to allow elastic shortments produced by creep or
shrinkage. On the other hand, joints between
prefabricated pieces of ties are made of epoxi.

42 cm

Cables
Slab

Intermediate floors

Underground parking
Four of the six buried storeys are used as car parking, while the
rest two holds the building hall and the mechanicall facility
room. They have around 1700 m2.
Their structures are formed by reinforced concrete slabs 40
cm thick, which were lighted with plastic coffers.
Pile distribution is not regular, to avoid affecting the traffic
requirements. Spans are around 11 m. Towers cores are used too
to support of the storeys.

The cables are precompressed

and
the
slab
self-weight
generates a decompression in
the cables.

0.00

Building Foundations
First of all, a perimetral slurry wall is constructed using bentonite.
Piles (60 cm in diameter) are used to support buried floors are
embedded. Over these piles, columns will be constructed.

Cores are supported by a spread foundations. They are square

and 13 m side and reinforced with usual passive steel and eight
prestressed cables. These foundations were joint to the core
through transversal prestressed.

Self-weight Prestress axial

axial diagram
diagram

Total axial
diagram

Diggings had be done without the help of soil anchorages. This

is due to Metro closeness.

-18.30

Tie axial diagram

Slurry wall

Structural Behavior to Horizontal Loads

Structural Behavior of Slabs

Vertical loads

Basement

seem

As protection
for fire

Prestress reinforcement

The principal vertical load of the

structure is the slab self-weight.
These loads are collected by
the prestressed
cables and
travel to the head.
The head transfers the load to
the core and the core to the
foundation.

behavior

To decrease
shrinkage stresses

42 cm

Figure 6.

The head
cantilever.

Storey

Horizontal loads
Bending moments

Mt

Wind loads

Shear

Mw

Bending moments
with ties

Tie in Tension

Tie in Compression

Bending moments
without ties

Against wind loads, the tower

presents
two
coupled
mechanisms. The first one of
these mechanism is formed by
the bending stiffness of the
central core, working as a
cantilever. The second one is
produced by the external ties.
The axial stiffness of the straps is
quite bigger than the bending
stiffness of the core. The axial
force of the straps determines
at that point a bending
moment, and therefore a
deflection
in the opposite
direction of the generated by
wind pressures.
The point of hanging buildings,
related to the wind effect, is
that the core is extremely
compressed which is optimal to
resist bending moments.

Rx

Construction Process

References

Main advantages:
Torres

Simultaneous construction of the upper and lower

structure, accelerating the path of construction, reduces
the execution time and overhead.

Casado, C., Manterola, J. y

Troyano, L. 1977. Estructura de las
Instituto Eduardo Torroja.
Informes de la
1977.

E. Edificio colgante: las

This technique allowed to reduce from -24.75 m to -17.95

m, which reduced economic and technical costs of time.

Las Torres

y la iglesia de Torre Ciudad.

Casado, C. 1973. [ed.]
del Pretensado. 107,
s.n., 1973,
y Acero,

It allowed to save 9% steel, 10% concrete and 19% in

workdays

343-347.
M.C. 2009.
del tipo
estructural "torre" en
[ed.] Escuela
Superior de Arquitectura (UPM).

Torres
Lamela, A. y
Casado, C. 1974. [ed.]
del Pretensado. 112,

s.n.,

Authors

November 2014
- Building slurry wall.
- Driving piles.
- Core foundation.

- Basement excavation.
- Beginning execution
basement storeys.
- Core elevation

- Transversal prestress.
- Spread footing in piles.
- End core elevation.

- Head execution.
- End basement.

- Odd slab execution

- Construction of even slabs

while supporting on the odd
ones.

- End slabs execution

- Intermediate floors execution

- Constructional finishings