The Ostankino Television Tower is constructed of high-strength prestressed concrete. The tower's height is 540 meters, with a total mass of the tower and foundation of 51,400 tons. The tower's strength limit is 8 on the Richter scale; it can withstand wind speeds of up to 44 m/s; the depth of the main foundation base is 3.5-4.6 meters; the usable floor area exceeds 15,000 sq.m.; the reliable television signal reception radius is 110-120 km.
A distinctive feature of its design was that an extraordinarily tall, slender shaft had to stand on a shallow, yet very wide and heavy foundation. It was precisely this feature that made the structure so robust that the engineer could incorporate a significant (up to 11 m.) deviation of the spire from the vertical axis in the design. For the first time in history, a television tower was built from concrete, not metal; for the first time, it housed technical services in addition to antennas; and for the first time, it was planned to reach a height of 540 meters.
The tower's design did not fail on the night of June 21, 1998, when hurricane-force winds reached 26 m/s, almost half the safety margin of the Ostankino giant. The secret lies in its unique design. In addition to the standard reinforcement used in reinforced concrete, 150 steel cables manufactured in Volgograd were tensioned within the tower shaft. They compressed the tower with such enormous force that no external factors—rain, hurricanes, large hail—could bend this structure, guaranteeing against the appearance of cracks in the concrete.
The fire that occurred on August 27, 2000, at the country's main tower became a true catastrophe not only for Muscovites: the flames were destroying not just a brilliant structure, but a symbol of the modern capital.
The primary task in restoring the Ostankino Tower was the timely manufacture and delivery of special steel cables, a task successfully handled by the team at the Industrial Technologies Center.
After the fire, when almost all the special cables compressing the tower's body snapped due to the high temperatures, the cracks began to grow. Specialists stated that the concrete, which had previously been under tension, freed from the cables, began to "breathe."
The danger was that moisture could penetrate these cracks and start a corrosion process. The fire temperature did not exceed 500 degrees, and anyone could verify the absence of tilt. As for the cables, they did not hold up the tower but only insured against the formation of cracks in the concrete.
Prior to the fire in August 2000, the tower housed: a television station, a VHF radio broadcasting station, a radiotelephone communications station with mobile objects, a radio relay station, a central high-altitude meteorological station, and a laboratory for studying thunderstorm phenomena.
A distinctive feature of its design was that an extraordinarily tall, slender shaft had to stand on a shallow, yet very wide and heavy foundation. It was precisely this feature that made the structure so robust that the engineer could incorporate a significant (up to 11 m.) deviation of the spire from the vertical axis in the design. For the first time in history, a television tower was built from concrete, not metal; for the first time, it housed technical services in addition to antennas; and for the first time, it was planned to reach a height of 540 meters.
The tower's design did not fail on the night of June 21, 1998, when hurricane-force winds reached 26 m/s, almost half the safety margin of the Ostankino giant. The secret lies in its unique design. In addition to the standard reinforcement used in reinforced concrete, 150 steel cables manufactured in Volgograd were tensioned within the tower shaft. They compressed the tower with such enormous force that no external factors—rain, hurricanes, large hail—could bend this structure, guaranteeing against the appearance of cracks in the concrete.
The fire that occurred on August 27, 2000, at the country's main tower became a true catastrophe not only for Muscovites: the flames were destroying not just a brilliant structure, but a symbol of the modern capital.
The primary task in restoring the Ostankino Tower was the timely manufacture and delivery of special steel cables, a task successfully handled by the team at the Industrial Technologies Center.
After the fire, when almost all the special cables compressing the tower's body snapped due to the high temperatures, the cracks began to grow. Specialists stated that the concrete, which had previously been under tension, freed from the cables, began to "breathe."
The danger was that moisture could penetrate these cracks and start a corrosion process. The fire temperature did not exceed 500 degrees, and anyone could verify the absence of tilt. As for the cables, they did not hold up the tower but only insured against the formation of cracks in the concrete.
Prior to the fire in August 2000, the tower housed: a television station, a VHF radio broadcasting station, a radiotelephone communications station with mobile objects, a radio relay station, a central high-altitude meteorological station, and a laboratory for studying thunderstorm phenomena.
