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  • 182 metres tall and decorated with 12,000 uniquely-crafted bronze panels,

  • India's 50-storey Statue Of Unity is a triumph of aesthetics and engineering.

  • And get thisit's made from melted-down old farm equipment.

  • How did they do it?

  • Can it really withstand earthquakes?

  • And how will its appearance change over the coming decades?

  • Join us today as we look up and ask how the world's tallest statue was built.

  • There are few more appropriate subjects for the world's tallest statue than Iron Man.

  • No, not THAT Iron Man.

  • Indian statesman and independence activist Vallabhbhai Patel is nicknamed the "Iron Man Of India" for his incredible nation-building work,

  • uniting all 562 independent princely states on the subcontinent after the British abruptly peaced out in the 1940s.

  • This statue was commissioned to celebrate Patel's monumental achievement.

  • And to underline the fact it's for all Indians, farmers from all across the nation Patel helped create sent in their old unused scrap iron.

  • Some 100 million farmers are said to have participated, yielding 129 tonnes of scrap iron,

  • which today, melted-down, forms the foundation of the statue.

  • The statue itself stands 182-metres tall, and that's no accident.

  • 182 was chosen because that's the number of seats on the Gujarati legislature.

  • It's constructed on a river island near where Patel grew up, facing the mighty Narmada Dam.

  • That dam, like so much else in Modern India, was also partly his idea.

  • Celebrated Indian sculptor Ram V Sutar, distinguished winner of the Padma Bhushan award for service to his country,

  • was chosen to lead the design team.

  • He'd already made a statue of Patel, the one currently residing at Ahmedabad International Airport.

  • Sutar reportedly combed through thousands of photographs and consulted many historians

  • in order to achieve the perfect likeness for his masterpiece.

  • Then he made models, first 3ft high, then 18ft, then 30 feet.

  • The finished clay model underwent meticulous 3D scanning,

  • with the model used as a reference for Chinese casting company Jiangxi Tongqing Metal Handicrafts,

  • where the bronze outer layer was manufactured.

  • Funding for the project came from a variety of sources, mostly the Gujarat government,

  • but also private donations and even a fun-run marathon.

  • In total it's estimated the cost amounted to almost US$400 million.

  • New York firm Michael Graves Architecture and Design was hired to oversee the project,

  • along with the Singapore-based Meinhardy Group and Indian infrastructure giant Larsen & Toubro.

  • Some 4,076 laboroures worked alongside 250 engineers for 57 months on the project.

  • Work began in earnest when Narendra Modithen premier of Gujarat, now Prime Ministerlaid the foundation on 31 October 2013,

  • what would've been Patel's 138th birthday.

  • The hillock on which the statue stands was flattened, from 70 metres to just 55 metres,

  • in order that the foundations could be laid.

  • Of the many thorny engineering problems that had to be overcome,

  • the most striking related to the statue's so-called "slenderness ratio."

  • What that basically means is that tall structures should ideally be more slender at the top than the bottom.

  • Seems obvious, right?

  • Ram V Sutar's sculpture of Vallabhbhai Patel, however, is clearly narrower at the base.

  • Moreover, the statue's thrusting progressive stance meant those dainty sandalled feet are some 6.5 metres apart.

  • Engineers decided the best way to solve this problem was to create two separate concrete cores,

  • the same kind of core you'll have seen a hundred times on skyscraper construction sites.

  • Between them, these cores incorporate around 210,000 cubic metres of cement and concrete,

  • 6,500 tonnes of structural steel, and 18,500 tonnes of reinforced steel.

  • Working in Gujarat's hot climate created challenges for the concrete pour team,

  • who needed to use an assortment of chiller systems to keep the all-important coarse aggregate element of the concrete cool enough to set evenly.

  • Lift shafts are concealed within each core for ferrying tourists up to the observation gallery,

  • where up to 200 delighted sightseers can gaze out over the Narmada Dam

  • and hundreds of acres of manicured grounds through strategically concealed rips in Patel's dhoti.

  • Further up the cores are twin 250-tone tuned mass dampers.

  • Why?

  • The area is occasionally prone to earthquakes.

  • Thanks to those dampers,

  • the structure can withstand quakes up to 6.5 on the Richter scale, to a depth of 10km and a radius of 12km away.

  • Cantilevered out from those mighty concrete cores is a steel "space frame",

  • designed on CAD software.

  • Onto this frame, the bronze-clad panelstransported by sea from Chinawere bolted on.

  • If you're thinking the panels don't entirely seem to line up, that's actually deliberate.

  • Why?

  • The panels are designed to overlap slightly so they can move about in high windsup to 180km an hour

  • and prevent the transmission of stress throughout the structure.

  • The skin alone, by the way, weighs over 2,000 tonnes.

  • And each panel is unique, requiring a clever tagging and numbering system to avoid confusion and delay on site.

  • The building phase took 33 months, by which point the statue was visible from 7km away.

  • It wasn't just the statue that was built, by the way

  • the mammoth project, which is 200km away from the nearest major city in a densely-forested rural areal

  • necessitated the building of a four-lane approach roan a food court, and a 52-room three star hotel.

  • There's also a museum featuring 2,000 photographs, and 40,000 documents.

  • Within 11 days of the unveilingon what would've been Patel's 143rd birthday

  • some 128,000 tourists had visited the site, more than the Statue of Liberty managed in the same timeframe.

  • The total number of visitors currently stands at around 6 million.

  • The statue is not without its critics.

  • Many argue it's an overpriced boondoggle, and the money would have been better spent addressing local poverty.

  • Over its projected 100 year lifespan, Patel's mammoth likeness will gradually turn green, owing to the composition of its metal.

  • And locals have wasted no time centring festivals around the giant statue,

  • like impressive light shows involving powerful lasers.

  • Well, what do you expect from Iron Man?

  • What do you think?

  • Is the panelled styling ingenious, or kind of an eyesore?

  • Let us know in the comments, and don't forget to subscribe for more heavy metal tech content.

182 metres tall and decorated with 12,000 uniquely-crafted bronze panels,

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