INTRODUCTION

The Petronas Towers, also known as the Petronas Twin Towers are twin skyscrapers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. According to the CTBUH's official definition and ranking, they were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004 until surpassed byTaipei 101, but remain the tallest twin buildings ever built, surpassing the World Trade Center. The building is the landmark of Kuala Lumpur with nearby Kuala Lumpur Tower.

Date of Completion:1998 (Opened Aug 31, 1999) Number of Storys:88 Overall Height:451.9m from street level (1483ft) Design/Architecture : Cesar Pelli & Associates (US) in association with KLCC architects Height of Superstructure: (Without pinnacle):378m (1240ft) (Tip of longest pile to tip of pinnacle mast):592.4m (1944ft) Total built-up area:341,760 sq. m Location of Sky Bridge : Levels 41 and 42 Length of Sky Bridge:58.4m (192ft) double-decked HEIGHT OF SKY BRIDGE:170M FROM STREET LEVEL (558FT) Weight of Sky Bridge:750 tons

 Sky Bridge Support : Two-hinge arch with rotational pins (spherical bearings) at Level 29, rising 63 degrees Vertical Transportation : Total= 76 lifts. 29 Double-deck high speed passenger lifts in each tower. Each D.D can carry 26 persons. Number of escalators:10 in each tower Stainless Steel Cladding:65,000 sq. m (700,000 sq. ft.) Vision Glass:77,000 sq. m (830,000 sq. ft.) Concrete (Various strength Up to grade 80):160,000 cu m in the superstructure (5.7mn cu ft.) Steel:36,910 tons of beam, trusses and reinforcement Foundation:4.5m (15 ft.) thick raft containing 13,200 cu m of grade 60 concrete, weighing approximately 32,550 tons under each Tower, supported by 104 piles from 60m to 115m in length. Building Control System : Central management of air-conditioning and lighting Building Security System : Card Access and Alarm Monitoring System, Closed Circuit Television System (CCTV), Voice Intercom System, and Photo Identification System.

SITE AND DESIGN

1.Petronas Towers I & II 2.Concert Hall 3.Suria KLCC Retail Complex 4.Office Tower (Menara Maxis, Menara Esso) 5.Mandarin Oriental Hotel 6.Future Buildings

The site for the Petronas Towers is the "GoldenTriangle. Around it radiates the city of KualaLumpur ,Malaysia's capital . The site is not only geographically central, but symbolically so. It has become the locus of the country's future, where an ewvision of Malaysia is information. The towers are the centerpiece of that vision and of the site itself. The jewel of this 100-acre site are the towers. Working within a mixed-used development master plan by the U.S. firm of Klages, Carter, Vail &Partners ,CesarPelli's design appeared to capture all of the aspirations of Malaysiain its flight to the future. The design drawings show a complex of buildings growing from an intimaterelationship with the site,generating from its core. At the heart of the design, between the two towers, Pelli located a concert hall that provides an important gathering space. To the northwest of the towers is a grand landscaped garden, providing just the right forecourt to Malaysia's gateway to the 21st century. From ancient Islamic forms of eight-pointed stars and decorative motifs, Pelli elaborated and refined the towers design. A sixteen- lobed perimeter tower wall suggests its Islamic roots without being literal, maximizing the exterior wall surface around the tower core.

THE FOUNDATION
The Twin Towers were planned to be built on the site of the former Selang or Turf Club which was flat, greenland. But soil studies showed that the site where the buildings were originally planned for, proved unsuitable for the foundation due to the irregularities of the limestone bed rock below that's known as Kenny Hill soil. Each tower was calculated to weigh 300,000 metric tonnes which would be spread over a large concretes lab called a mat. But that weight exerted 1,140 kilo pascals (one kilopascal pressure is equivalent to 1kg exerting pressure on 1 sq mm), exceeding the weight-bearing capacity of the soil and enough to cause the foundation to fail. To support theimmenseweight,adepthof21m(ashighasafivestory)wouldhavetobeexcavatedforthebasement.Thisalsomeantpenet ratingthebedrockatoneendbutnottheother. Installingconcrete-filled piers at the deepend would be difficult, slow and expensive, exceeding normal construction practices. The piers shortening over time would also produce unacceptable tower tilting. KLCCB(KualaLumpurCityCentreBhd),the developer of KLCC, finally decided to move the location 60m southeast of the initial site to achieve better support.

 The concrete was continuously poured into the hole for more than 52 hours in order to eliminate construction joints in the pile mat and achieve a smooth fish. The construction industry normally uses grade 30 or 40 concrete.For the towers, high-strength grade 80 concrete was used. "The use of such high grade concrete was a transfer of technology from the USA which uses upto grade 110 in the construction industry.

SUPERSTRUCTURE
The new technology included the first-ever GPS(Global Positioning Satellite) system used in the country to calculate the accuracy of the towers vertical height. Perhaps the most revolutionary step made was in using concrete instead of the conventional steel in the construction of the columns and core walls of the towers. Since it was a local material that could be produced easily. It took 25 months and a week to complete Tower One, and 24 months for Tower Two. The floors upto the 73rd are identical in shape and design; hence the name "typicalfloors The concrete core walls were placed in position first, followed by 16 columns joined by ring beams and then the concrete cantilevered slabs which would form the geometric shape.

These pictures show the cross section of the tower. The cross section shows TWO squares interlocking to each other to form an eight-point star shape, which is the most common shape design in Islamic design.

Geometry is used as the main concept of the design of Petronas Twin Towers.

This design means:Unity Harmony Stability Rationality

These pictures is taken from: Pelli, C. and Crosbie, M.J. Petronas Towers: The architechture of high construction. Wiley Academy.

MATERIALS USED

The large entrance lobby incorporates a geometric design on the floor the features a radial swirl of stainless steel inlaid on green granite.

DETAIL OF CANTILEVERD STEEL FLOOR STRUCTURES FOR PROJECTIG BAYS

STUDIES OF PROJECTING SET-BACK FLOOR CURTAINWALL

CLADDING

Cladding began once the building reached level nine in late 1994. A total of 83,500sqm of stainless steel extrusions and 55,000sqm of laminated glass were used to clad the walls and realize Architect Cesar Pelli's vision, which was that of a"multifaceted diamond sparkling in the sun." Designed as a curtain wall exterior, the cladding comprised 33,000 panelsinall; each panelis as high as one floor and spans ledge to ledge. Distinctive features of the curtain wall includes the horizontal "bullnoses and the "teardrop sunscreen brackets which provided shade for the building. Both bullnose and tear drop give the appearance of a flowing silver ribbon around the building. Laminated glass was preferred forits safety, sound insulation, durability and solar energy control. It also screens out most ultra-violet rays, hence protecting the interior from sun damage. "The speed of the cladding also depended on the construction of the floors. Not all the floors were cladded as some had to be left open due to the lifting of materials and so forth." But the cladding was halted briefly at one stagelevel30-in order to make way for the main highlight of the building-the skybridge

THE SKY BRIDGE

Standing at 170m and connecting two levels-41 and 42-of both towers, the sky bridge symbolizes the gate way to the City Centre, and the door way to the infinite. Certainly one wrong step would send many to infinity too and that was why the bridging of the towers had to bed one slowly and carefully. According to then project engineer for the civil and structural department of KLCCB (KualaLumpurCityCentreBerhad), Mohamad A.Jamal, the skybridge had always been in the plans although the initial design was not what it is now. "The bridge was designed to be supported by cables at first. But the engineering consultants, soon realized that the cable system was not effective enough accommodate the bridge movements caused by the wind factor," It was only after studying numerous designs, the wind tunnel factors and structural options using state-of-the-art computer simulations that the engineers arrived at the final design of the bridge.

The skybridge built between the two towers uses the combination of rectangles and triangles structure to add more strength and stability to the bridge

"The final design was simplified to accommodate the movements caused by the wind. We made a model of the bridge and placed it in a wind tunnel environment that was supplemented by a3-D computer simulation before we went ahead with the construction." Instead of the cables, a two-hinge arch rising from supports at level29 at 63 propped up a pair of parallel two-span bridge girders located at level41. The two- hinge arch has rotational bearings at the end of each leg that allows the legs to move 300 in strong winds. The sky bridge-58.4m in length and weighing 750 tons-was fabricated in South Korea by Samsung Heavy Industries and pre-assembled to ensure they fitted before being transported to Malaysia. Comprising 493 pieces, the skybridge arrived at the KLCC site in the first week of May 1995. The day came when the bridge would make history by being lifted to its placeJuly 6, 1995. The bridge was assembled at the concourse level into five components-the two legs, two end blocks and the center section. The legs were lifted one at a time and at a certain height, each leg was maneuvered into a vertical position. Then control cable slowered the legs to their bearings where they were secured and held "upright by a holding frame

EXPLODED AXONOMETRIC VIEW OF SKY BRIDGE

The last phase of the completion of the bridge, with both block ends welded