4821x
000649
2013-03-07

New "Bharati" Indian Research Station in Antarctica

A new research station was built in East Antarctica for the Indian Ministry of Geosciences in the Antarctic summer months of 2010/11 and 2011/12. The design and planning come from the offices of bof Architekten and IMS Ingenieurgesellschaft in Hamburg, Germany.

The complex structure consists of an enveloping steel structure and a total of 134 special containers, which were integrated to transfer vertical and horizontal loads. The final structural analysis was carried out by the German engineering office of KSF in Bremerhaven.

Structure

The "Bharati" research station, which is for the most part a two‑story building, has a floor plan with dimensions of about 98 ft x 164 ft and is more than 40 ft high. The station was designed for a minimum operation time of 25 years.

The structure is mostly elevated and built on steel columns to minimize the impact of snow drifts. The foundation consists of a total of 83 GEWI piles (injection piles) that were inserted into the rocky underground.

The research station is exposed to extreme wind loading. The dynamic pressure of gusts given in the wind report was 54.3 psf.

The building is stiffened at the station's front end by diagonal columns arranged in a Y‑shape and by a solid reinforced concrete core at the back end.

Calculation in RSTAB

As high demands were made on the serviceability of the building (deflections, natural frequency, and so on), it was necessary to analyze the deformation behavior as realistically as possible.

Therefore, the entire spatial model was entered and designed in RSTAB. All load-bearing cross‑sections of the integrated container modules, as well as the enclosing steel girder construction, could be represented in the program.

The shear stiffness of the container walls was taken into account by substitute diagonals. Likewise, the connections between the containers and the steel structure as well as between the containers themselves were detailed in the computational model.

Structural Design merz kley partner
www.mkp-ing.com
Investor Erlebnis Akademie AG, Bad Kötzing, Germany
www.eak-ag.de
Manufacturing and Assembly Metalúrgica Vera S.R.L.
Investor NCAOR - National Centre for Antarctic & Ocean Research
Goa, India
ncpor.res.in


Project Specifications

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