You are on page 1of 4

Discussion

The design of the five-story reinforced concrete structure entailed a number of steps and
calculations. Each section listed below describes one step in the process of the design. Attached
to the end of this report are sample hand calculations for each step in the design process by each
of our group member.
Slab thickness
The slab thickness was determined to be one hundred and fifty (150) millimeters. For ease of
construction and economical purposes, a slab thickness of 150 millimeters was used throughout
the entire building.
Loads
The load were calculated by using Table 6.2 of BS EN 1991-1-1:2002 in Eurocode 1.
For the floors, the permanent loads included the load from the ceiling, finishes, services and also
other mechanical equipment is 6.0 kN/m2 and the load from the slab. The imposed load is 8.0
kN/m2 while the partition loading (which was also considered a variable load) was 0.5 kN/m2.
The load for the slab was calculated by multiplying the slab thickness with the unit weight of
concrete 25 kN/m2.
The load combination from Table 6.2 of BS EN 1991-1-1:2002 consisted of a load factor of 1.0
for the permanent load and 4.0 for the variables load. Using this load combination, the floor load
was found to be 112.64 kN.

Estimation of the Column Size


The first step in the process of determining the column size was the calculation of the tributary
area of the most heavily loaded column, which in this building plan was a column in the interior
section of the building, which resulted in a tributary area of (). The loading of the roof and four
floors was multiplied by this tributary area to determine the factored load experience by the
ground story column. The area of the concrete needed to support the calculated force was then
calculated, taking into account both the strength of the concrete and the steel. Appropriate overall
strength reduction factors were included to not only provide a further factor of safety but also
account for eccentric loading of the column. It was also assumed that 10% of the area of the
column was steel. Using this assumption, the overall area of the column was .
Using a rectangular cross-section, the column width and depth were chosen to be 300 x 400
millimeters. It should be noted that this calculation was for preliminary design only and would be
checked later in the design process.

Slab design
The slabs were primarily designed with reinforcing steel to the numerical grid lines. This is
because the floor system is a two-way slab, which means that bending will occur in two
directions and it is supported on four sides, with the largest moment being at the top of the slab
near the supports and at the bottom of the slabs at the mid-spans. Steel was also provided in the
transverse direction to provide resistance to the temperature and shrinkage cracks in the tension
regions.
The first step in the slab design was to find the effective span length. For negative moments, the
effective length span length is taken as the average of the two adjacent clear spans while for
positive moments the effective span length is the given slabs clear span. Next, the moment
coefficients were found for a spandrel slab with two or more spans. The spandrel slab was used
because the majority of the slab acts as a spandrel (the slab was just supported by beams). Since
the portion of the slab that was supported just by the beams is so much greater than the portion
that is supported by the columns, the spandrel condition was used for the moment coefficient.
Using the moments at the critical sections, the steel required was tabulated along with the
minimum steel requirement according to Table 1 and Table 2 in Eurocode 2. The larger quantity
of steel governed and a steel size and spacing combination was chosen. Two additional
requirements were then checked. The first was that the maximum steel spacing could not exceed
three times of the slab thickness. Additionally, a practical limit of the spacing being greater than
one and a half times the slab thickness was checked.
Crack control
Cracks pose not only aesthetic problems to a building, but cracks also can lead to faster corrosion
rates that can accelerate the failure of the beam. Therefore, in Eurocode 2 there are limitation for
the spacing of the rebar to control the cracking of the concrete.
The slab reinforcement was checked. Using equation 7.1 in BS EN 1992 and the assumption that
the stress in the rebar was two-thirds the yield stress, the maximum spacing allowed by code was
found. The maximum spacing that we got should be compared to the slab reinforcing in the
original design. If the maximum spacing smaller than any of the slab reinforcing in the original
design. Therefore, the slab reinforcing fails code and must be re-designed with a maximum
spacing. The best way to accomplish this would be reduce the size of the bar and use the
corresponding spacing needed per the strength requirements, whichever is smaller. This would be
the most economical way to change the design, as it would most likely not rely on the minimum
anymore.

Deflection control

Deflections must be controlled in any structure in order to make the bulding feels safe and is
serviceable. Additionally, deflections must be controlled so that the non-structural components of
the building do not fail.
The first step in the deflection calculation was to find the effective moment of inertia of the
cross-section assuming the full load was applied to the building early on in the construction
process (this is in order to be conservative). This effective moment of inertia is the moment of
inertia for the beam based on the amount of cracking in the beam (it is always somewhere inbetween the moment of inertia of a fully cracked beam and a completely un-cracked beam). Find
the moment of inertia was found for the beam cross-sections. Then each critical point on each
span (the negative bending moments near the columns and the positive bending moment at the
mid-span) was checked to see if the section was cracked. If the section was cracked (which was
the case for the majority of the sections), the cracked moment of inertia for the beam was
calculated. Next the effective moment of inertia for each section critical section was found
according to Eurocode 2. Using the deflection equation for a continuous span, the deflection
under the total load was found.
Column design
The determination of the reinforcement for the columns was the next part of designing. The
columns are the most critical part of the building because the failure of a column. Especially a
column lower in the building, could have devastating ramifications. The failure of a column
could result in the failure of a large portion, or all, of the building. Columns are deemed more
important in the design of building than the design of the beams or the floor systems because if a
beam or floor collapses, the damage may be contained to a much smaller area than if a column
fails.
Find the maximum axial and moment loads that each column could experience were found.
These loads were divided into the permanent loads (mechanical equipment, roofing material, slab
self-weight, column self-weight, beam self-weight) and the variable loads (the partitions, general
variable loads). The top and bottom of each column were analyzed by looking at two different
loading conditions. Both conditions vary based on which bays the variable load is applied. For
both scenarios the simplest loading scenario that causes the maximum bending is assumed to be
the starting point (this is typically achieved by applying the live load on the bay that frames into
the section of the column being analyzed is not affected. In the second loading scenario, only the
initial variable load to cause the maximum moment is applied. In this way, the column is
designed for both axial loading and eccentric loading.
Using these loading scenarios, the moment was calculated in the beams and using structural
analysis the distribution of the moment in the beam to the moments in the column was computed.
Then using this moment in the column along with the axial load in the column, the reinforcement
was found using Eurocode 2 for both loading cases at the top and bottom of each column. Next,
the governing steel requirement was found for a given column. After the longitudinal steel was
chosen, the ties were chosen.
Using the constraints that the spacing could be more than 16 times the diameter of the
longitudinal steel, forty-eight times the diameter of the ties and the least dimension of the
compression member, the tie spacing was determined for every floor of every column as well.

The pattern in the column reinforcement is that on the exterior of the building, the roof
experiences considerable bending and therefore more steel is needed in these regions.
Using Eurocode 2, a preliminary design of a five-story building reinforced concrete was
completed. Overall, the structure is a very efficient building with only a couple of edits needed in
future iterations of the design. It was determined that the design did not fully comply with
Eurocode 2, but that these flaws would be revised in future edits to the overall design. The loads
for the structure were determine from Eurocode 1 with the load combinations from Eurocode 2.
This design is only preliminary design for this reinforced concrete building and several further
revisions are still needed for this design to be complete.

You might also like