Delivering the Emirates Air Line, London, UK: design and construction of the steel main towers

Abstract

This paper presents the design, fabrication and erection process of the three main towers of the Emirates Air Line cable car, which spans the River Thames in London, UK. The towers consist of geometrically complex arrangements of a circular hyperboloid shaft topped by a tapering elliptical hyperboloid head. The shafts are formed of interlocking, alternatively and differently pitched, spiralling, doubly curved, structural steel plate elements of varied typologies. The paper presents the extraordinary technical demands including the plate forming process, the complex array of loadings, the nature of the wind responses investigated including impacts of aerodynamic effects from cyclic wind loading, specific requirements for advanced connection stiffness modelling to ensure the extremely tight movement criteria, the challenges of erection over the river Thames and the details of site assembly to tight tolerances. This paper is one of a series of four which describe the delivery of the Emirates Air Line project.