Abstract: The Shanghai Tower is the highest building in China.  The rigid reinforced concrete column frame and core tube structure system consists of only 20% of the total area (core tube part) but it carries over 40% of the total upper structure load. The variable foundation stiffness approach was applied with piles of variable length at correspondent locations. The structure design was performed with commercial software “Super Star Foundation Strength and Deformation” by implementing the user-defined variable Winkler coefficient iteration subroutine program with Mindlin theory for medium to thick concrete plates. The results indicated that a fast convergent can be obtained and the variable footing stiffness by installing variable lengths of piles can effective adjust the differential stress and deformations.

Key words: Shanghai Tower, Variable Stiffness Adjustment, Variable Winkler Coefficient Method, Iterative Method