Rotating Tower, Glasgow Science Centre, Scotland

The Glasgow Science Centre is built on reclaimed land at Pacific Quay in the heart of Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

  Glasgow Tower is a free-standing tower located on the south bank of the River Clyde, holds a Guinness World Record for being the tallest tower in the world in which the whole structure is capable of rotating 360 degrees.

Its construction has presented a variety of engineering and technical challenges to the project teams involved in its design and construction.

It has caused serious constraint tradeoffs between cost and scope.

 

At 127 metres (417 ft), the Glasgow Tower is currently the tallest tower in Scotland.

It took more than 10 years for overall implementation of the Glasgow tower including its completion and opening to the public. 

 

The whole structure rests upon a 65-centimetre-diameter (26 in) thrust bearing, and is connected to its foundations by two concentric rings and shock absorbers. 

Glasgow Science Centre Tower was designed to be 10 times taller than its base width. This was

the biggest technical challenge of the tower project. 

The Glasgow Science Centre originally allocated US$12 million to the tower project.

Such a tall and slender building would be subject to buffeting and turbulence by the wind, which would provide an unpleasant experience for visitors. The tower was designed as the first such structure in the world to rotate 360° from the ground up, into the prevailing wind. The tower resembled a wing on end, and was mounted on a turntable. The ‘‘wing’’ is made up of airfoil-shaped outriggers blending into the stair tower. 

The reinforced-concrete base of the tower contained the roller bearing turntable.

Wind forces at the Glasgow Airport and mean hourly wind speeds along the river basin were used to measure the aerodynamic effects on the tower. As a result, the final design would allow visitors to feel movement similar to that of riding in a subway.

The original scope of the tower included a pod-shaped, glass viewing cabin topped by a 130 ft. (39.62 m) steel mast. 

To speed up construction and ensure accuracy, the tower was assembled in Poland before being dismantled and shipped to Glasgow.

A final opening date was determined for June 2001, but the June 2001 tower opening was delayed because it was discovered that the tower’s elevators were too heavy. Managers were furious and started examining penalty clauses in their contract with a Swedish elevator manufacturer. 

Aside from the elevator problem, another example of the mistakes in the course of the tower project was that management failed to secure a public entertainment license from Glasgow City Council, which also postponed the grand opening. Another delay in the opening occurred because of software problems. The tower remained closed after the opening of the science mall on June 21, 2001. 

An opening ceremony, complete with dignitaries, was scheduled for October 2001, but was cancelled when the heavy-glass elevators failed again. Ultimately, the tower was officially opened in October 2001. It remained in operation for fewer than 100 days since its opening. 

Engineers shut the attraction down for an extended period of time to repair the broken bearings at the base of the tower and to install and test a replacement bearing that was manufactured in Germany.

The tower was closed to the public in February 2002 and remained out of use until August 2004 when it was opened for a two week period and shut down again for maintenance.

On January 29, 2005, both elevators failed, trapping ten people including four children almost halfway up the structure. 

However, The Glasgow Science Centre is a truly unique, complex structure whose design, construction, and management faced significant challenges and problems. But, in the end, the city of Glasgow now has a state-of-the-art science and technology center of which it can be proud.