Beijing Daxing International Airport terminal, is one of two international airports serving Beijing, the other one being Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK). It is located on the border of Beijing and Langfang, Hebei Province. It has been nicknamed “the starfish.” It was completed on June 30, 2019, and began operations on September 26, 2019. Beijing Daxing covers an expanse of 2,679 hectares (6,620 acres) and has four civilian runways and one military runway.
Beijing Daxing International Airport Terminal is the largest and most technically difficult single airport terminal in the world. The roof steel structure of its main terminal is composed of a support system and a roof steel space frame, weighing more than 42,000 tons. It is almost same weight to The Bird’s Nest steel structure.
The roof steel space frame structure of the terminal building is an irregular free-form surface with a span of 180 meters. The height difference between the highest and lowest points is about 30 meters. It requires the use of 12,300 ball nodes, 25 specifications of steel pipes, and a quantity of 63,450 steel pipes. With a total length of nearly 500 kilometers, it is no exaggeration to say that it is a construction miracle. The central hall is supported by only 8 C-shaped columns, forming a column-free space with a diameter of 180 meters. The maximum height of a single C-shaped column is 37 meters and the maximum weight is 655 tons. The ultra-large and ultra-wide grid supports the terminal with the largest single building area in the world.
