Kuwait High-Rise Goes Up with BeiDou Help: CORS Station Tracks China's Constellation over Three Frequencies

摘要

Headquarters for the National Bank of Kuwait, a new 300-meter-tall building under construction, combines concrete, steel, glazing and glass-reinforced concrete in a unique shellfish shape. The engineering challenges behind this building led the engineers of Ahmadiah Company, the contractor, to use GNSS technology to install the core wall structure with millimeter accuracy. They adopted the core wall control survey method developed by Joel van Cranenbroeck during construction projects in Dubai. To guarantee the precise vertical thrust of a tower during construction, complete control must be maintained of the position of each new element erected on top of the existing core walls. Such new elements, and their formwork structures, must be precisely positioned with respect to the main axis of the design reference frame, defined as the vertical positioned in the tower center. This means that the position of the formwork structures at the top of the tower must be continuously measured during erection of the building.