Beijing Daxing International Airport Is The World's Largest Single Building With Seismic Isolation!

In 2016, the British newspaper The Guardian selected a list of the "New Seven Wonders of the World". China accounts for two places on this list. One is the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, which ranks third; the other is the Beijing Daxing International Airport, which tops the list and is currently the world's largest airport.

It passes underneath high-speed railways, subways and urban railways, and accommodates domestic and international flights for takeoff and landing. The terminal building is so large that it can even contain the Bird's Nest!

Beijing Daxing International Airport is positioned as a large-scale international aviation hub.
Four runways are planned and constructed to meet an annual passenger throughput of 100 million person-times. It has become one of the most important transportation hubs in China and even in the world.

In the terminal building of the new airport, surrounded by the main white color, the C-shaped columns and the roof decorative panels create a dreamy and lofty space. On the C-shaped columns, the white steel bars seem to spread out like huge lotus leaves, making it even more magnificent and imposing.
The roof, with a total area of 180,000 square meters, is mainly supported by 8 C-shaped columns that are wider at the top and narrower at the bottom. The most amazing thing is that the maximum width at the top of the C-shaped columns reaches 23 meters, while the narrowest part at the bottom is only 3 meters. Through the transparent glass of the roof, sunlight pours into the entire interior.
The suspended ceiling changes continuously from the side to the top surface, forming the texture of "auspicious clouds in the shape of a ruyi scepter", echoing with the "blossoming flowers" pattern of the stone tiles on the ground from top to bottom. Standing on the central floating island on the fifth floor of the terminal building and overlooking, the spectacular scene is truly astonishing.

Daxing Airport features a streamlined and radiating shape. Five corridors extend outward from the center, which are like the eyes of a phoenix and also resemble a phoenix spreading its wings. Together with the Capital Airport, one in the south and the other in the north, they form a dual-hub pattern of "the Dragon and the Phoenix Bringing Prosperity".

The red exterior of Daxing Airport is like a mythical bird, the phoenix, enveloped in flames. The phoenix is also known as "Vermilion Bird", which represents the divine beast guarding the south in Chinese classics. And Daxing Airport is located at the southern end of the central axis of Beijing, carrying profound implications.

The design of the five corridors radiating from the center can better shorten the walking distance of passengers. For passengers taking international flights at Daxing Airport, it only takes about 20 minutes from entering the terminal building to boarding the plane. Compared with Terminal 3 of Capital Airport, nearly 40 minutes can be saved.

The British newspaper The Guardian once rated it as the top of the "Seven Wonders of the New World", and the website of the British newspaper The Mirror also marveled that Beijing's new airport seemed to have come out of a science fiction movie.

And Daxing Airport has lived up to expectations, breaking record after record:
It is the first time in the world that a high-speed railway passes underneath an airport terminal building.
It has the airport terminal building with the largest seismic isolation bearings in the world.
It is the world's largest integrated terminal building without structural joints.
It is the world's first terminal building with double-layer arrival and departure functions.
It has the world's largest air traffic control automation system.

As the world's largest single terminal building, it has a construction area of approximately 1.4 million square meters, which is equivalent to the sum of Terminal 1, Terminal 2, and Terminal 3 of Beijing Capital Airport.
Looking to the future, the increasingly frequent domestic and international economic exchanges in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region will further stimulate the demand for air passenger transportation. Let's witness the soaring of the phoenix together!

It is the terminal building with the highest construction technical difficulty in the world. The roof area of the airport is equivalent to 25 football fields.
There is a huge hexagonal skylight at the center of the roof, together with six strip-shaped skylights. Eight bubble windows are connected to each other, turning the interior of the airport into a large atrium filled with light.
A total of 12,800 pieces of glass are used in the entire terminal building, and 8,000 pieces of completely different glass are used for the roof alone. The designer simplified the architectural form by connecting the top of the C-shaped columns with the bubble skylights, integrating the roof with the load-bearing structure. The entire roof is supported by only 8 C-shaped columns, creating a huge atrium with almost no columns. Sunlight shines through the glass and fills the hall, and passengers can start their journey bathed in the sunlight.
For the first time, a high-speed railway passes underneath the terminal building. The Beijing-Bazhou High-speed Railway will rush past beneath the airport, and there are also the S6 line, the Langfang-Zhuozhou Intercity Railway, and intercity railways underground.
Beijing Daxing International Airport has adopted the layer isolation seismic technology, which is the first of its kind in China. This makes the seismic fortification intensity of the airport reach 8 degrees. Beijing Daxing International Airport is designed in a radial shape, with a large span and a very complex structure. For such a large building, how to make it a "strong building" with extremely strong seismic resistance? Relevant experts said that the application of the isolation seismic technology has well solved the problem of the vibration caused by the high-speed railway.

It is reported that in order to solve the vibration problem caused by the high-speed railway passing through underground, the construction agency has pioneered the layer isolation seismic technology and installed seismic isolation bearings. Both the overall quantity and the tonnage of a single bearing have set domestic records.

Here we are talking about the isolation and damping technology, which belongs to the field of engineering seismology and is the abbreviation of building seismic isolation technology and building seismic damping technology. Building seismic isolation means setting up an isolation layer with an overall reset function composed of laminated rubber seismic isolation bearings between the foundation, bottom or lower structure and the upper structure of a building, so as to extend the natural vibration period of the entire structural system and reduce the horizontal seismic action input into the upper structure, meeting the expected earthquake prevention requirements. Building seismic damping technology is to install energy dissipation devices at certain parts of a structure. Through the friction, bending, and elastoplastic hysteretic deformation generated by these devices, the energy of the earthquake input into the structure can be dissipated or absorbed, reducing the seismic response of the main structure, thus avoiding the damage or collapse of the structure and achieving the purpose of seismic control. Simply, a soft isolation layer is set between the upper structure and the ground to reduce the transmission of ground motion to the upper structure, greatly reducing the seismic response of the upper structure and thus realizing the "isolation" of the earthquake. Usually, the seismic response of an isolated structure is only 1/4 to 1/8 of that of a non-isolated structure, so it can greatly improve the seismic performance of the building.

The double-deck departure viaduct, which is the first of its kind in China, the steel structure roof truss with extremely high difficulty, and a special seismic structure have been designed.

The roof and supporting structure of Beijing's new airport all adopt irregularly shaped steel structures. Its structural stress is highly nonlinear, and the stress under the action of earthquakes and strong winds is very different from that of ordinary building structures.

The overall steel structure roof truss is in a radial shape. In the central hall of the structure, six groups of C-shaped columns are set up, forming a column-free space with a diameter of 180 meters. These C-shaped columns are different from ordinary straight cylindrical columns. They are part of the roof steel frame. After being densified and deformed, they form columns, which can provide vertical support for the roof and the stiffness to resist lateral seismic forces. These C-shaped columns have different shapes and also vary greatly in height, which will affect the overall seismic resistance of the structure and its ability to resist continuous collapse.

Therefore, during the seismic design, according to the specific stress conditions of the C-shaped columns, the engineers have made special designs for the seismic forces at various angles of each C-shaped column to ensure foolproof results. In addition to the high-standard mechanical design of the steel frame itself, the terminal building also adopts a seismic isolation design at the top of the columns on the underground first floor, and uses the design concept of "overcoming hardness with softness" to resist earthquakes.

The seismic isolation layer is composed of lead-core seismic isolation bearings(LRB), Normal rubber seismic isolation bearings(LNR), elastic sliding plate bearings(ESB) and dampers. By setting up such a seismic isolation layer with very low stiffness that can move or deform greatly when an earthquake occurs, it can not only prevent the seismic force from being transmitted to the upper structure and damaging the steel frame, but also dissipate the seismic force through the dampers in the seismic isolation layer. This approach neither blindly increases the weight and construction cost of building components nor effectively improves the seismic resistance of the building.

The Seismic Isolation Arrangement of the Airport

Since a high-speed railway line is set under the terminal building of Beijing Daxing International Airport, and the vertical distance between the terminal building and the high-speed railway is only 11 meters, when the high-speed railway passes through the 510-meter-long "high-speed railway tunnel" at a speed of 350 kilometers per hour, it will generate relatively strong wind pressure and vibration. Therefore, during the construction of the airport, the layer isolation seismic technology, which is the first of its kind in China, was adopted. This technology mainly involves installing seismic isolation bearings below the first-floor slab of the terminal building. Simply put, a soft isolation layer is set between the upper structure and the ground of the terminal building, completely separating the first floor of the terminal building from the underground first floor. This not only isolates the vibration but also does not affect the use of the underground floor. The adoption of the isolation seismic technology can greatly improve the seismic performance of the building, significantly enhance the structural safety of the building, and effectively solve the vibration problem when the building interfaces with rail transit such as subways and intercity railways.

Academician Zhou Fulin said that the seismic isolation system has changed the "rigid resistance" concept and approach in traditional seismic resistance systems, which rely on increasing the structural section and reinforcement ratio, into the shock absorption concept and approach of "overcoming hardness with softness". This is a successful application of the Chinese cultural philosophical thought of "overcoming hardness with softness" in structural earthquake prevention engineering.

Xing Chengqi, the chief engineer of the Beijing Earthquake Administration, introduced that Beijing's new airport is designed in a radial shape, with a large span and a very complex structure. As an important lifeline project, its seismic fortification requirements are that when affected by an earthquake, not only should the structure of the terminal building be ensured to be intact, but also the normal operation of instruments and equipment and the safety of personnel should be guaranteed, and it should play a role in emergency rescue after the disaster. If the traditional seismic design is adopted, it may be difficult to achieve the fortification objectives. However, the adoption of seismic isolation technology can greatly improve the structural safety of the airport, and at the same time effectively solve the vibration problem when it interfaces with rail transit such as subways and intercity railways.

In the project of Beijing's new airport, a seismic isolation layer has been set at the top of the columns on the underground first floor of the core area of the terminal building. The seismic isolation devices include lead-core rubber seismic isolation bearings(LRB), Normal rubber seismic isolation bearings(LNR), sliding seismic isolation rubber bearings(ESB), and viscous dampers(VFD), etc. A total of more than 1,000 sets of seismic isolation devices have been used in the entire terminal building. Among them, the numbers of rubber seismic isolation bearings(LRB,LNR&HDR) with diameters of 1,200 mm, 1,300 mm, and 1,500 mm are 785, 66, and 217 respectively; the numbers of stainless steel sliding plate bearings(ESB) with diameters of 600 mm and 1,500 mm are 38 and 70 respectively; and there are a total of 144 viscous dampers(VFD). Judging from the used elastic sliding plate seismic isolation bearings, both in terms of the overall quantity and the tonnage of a single bearing, they have set domestic records, breaking the previous record held by Kunming Airport.

Seismic isolation rubber bearing(LRB/LNR/HDR)

Viscous Fluid Damper(VFD)

(The above products photos are only for reference).

It is reported that the adoption of seismic isolation technology in buildings can not only solve the seismic problems of construction projects but also significantly reduce construction costs. Researcher Gao Mengtan, the chief editor of the "Map of Seismic Ground Motion Parameter Zonation in China," believes that the application of seismic isolation technology can reduce the size of the beams and columns of buildings, decrease the usage of steel bars and cement, and to a certain extent, lower the construction cost of buildings, bringing about certain economic benefits. Compared with traditional seismic resistance technology, for buildings in high-intensity seismic areas, the application of seismic isolation technology can actually save 3% to 20% of the cost compared with traditional seismic-resistant structures. Generally speaking, in areas with a higher seismic fortification intensity, the cost advantage of seismic isolation technology is more obvious.

This magical super airport in China

Has shocked the whole world!

I wonder if it has shocked you?

Compiled by the Xinjiang Earthquake Administration from sources such as "AssBook Design Canteen, Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily Online, Beijing Satellite TV, China Civil Aviation Network, Beijing Earthquake Administration, etc."

The above content is processed from internet only for your reference.

A professional provider and manufacturer specialized in the seismic isolation and mitigation industry, offering a wide varity of rubber bearings and diverse dampers for buildings and bridges.