Concrete Structures Design

(Arch406)

Spring semester 2020

Mohamed Ahmed Khalifa

43-5492
 RC skeleton in residential buildings

Abstract

In this paper, a proposal for reinforced concrete components and current situation in affecting civil engineering
will take place to try to provide a successful fulfilled research about a particular building type and style which is
being used widely nowadays, also an evaluation for RC meaning, usages, advantages, importance and also
corresponding materials such as: steel and timber will be proposed based on some previous studies and
references to be enlightened about the strength points of RC which make it preferable for many civil engineers .
The papers will contain the definition of RC which could be told as a mix between cement concrete and
reinforcements, this combination is made to take advantage of the huge strength of concrete and tense strength
of steel at the same time in order to act together to resist many types of loads, using RC columns, beams and
slabs to distribute loads and weights on buildings, because building materials are so sensitive and need to be
carefully made, engineered and well-studied. Also in this paper all structural elements include RC will be
mentioned and explained with detailed calculations in order to evaluate the procedures of using RC skeletons in
residential buildings and to highlight its importance and impact on architectural studies and designs too.

Introduction

The idea of choosing one certain building material is considered to be the most concerning and debatable idea
for clients, architects, constructors and civil engineers in construction industry nowadays, as each of them have
a preferable type of material depending on costs, ways of having the material and efficiency of this material.
Our selected material for this papers is RC (reinforced concrete) which is widely used currently among
construction fields as it has a noticeable impact on this type of industry and building which will be explained in
details in the papers.

RC (reinforced concrete) can be defined as a composition of materials which are cement concrete and other
reinforcements such as steel to increase its tensile strength and ductility. It can be described as a well-known
term given to a concrete member which includes steel reinforcement to increase the strength of the structure.
The substance which outcomes from the composition of concrete and reinforced steel is called Reinforced
Concrete (RC). During construction process, firstly the reinforcement steel is placed in the formwork in the
form of steel bars that are well-tied together and wired to increase strength and stability. Then concrete is
poured in the formwork and vibrated using special devices in order to guarantee the holding situation between
the two materials, and for that formwork used there are some important materials which are: wood- steel bars-
polywood- plastics and aluminum (Pure aluminum chemically attacked by wet concrete), and to guarantee a
good composition there are some instructions must be watched for which are: rate of pouring- temperature and
weather- proportions of mix and consistency- method of placement and vibrating, these instructions improves
the quality of RC in order to avoid concrete weakness and failure. Reinforced concrete is a widely spread
building material as it is strong, easy to work with, adaptable, durable, and affordable. It is commonly used for
the construction of foundations to the rooftops of buildings, in the construction of highways roads traffic,
precast structures, floating structures, and hydro-power tunnels, irrigation canals, drains, and all other
conceivable structures. There are many application for RC:

1. Buildings

2. Bridges

3. Flyovers

4. Water Tanks

5. Roads

6. Floating Structures

7. Foundations

8. Marine Structures
 9. Pipes and Conduits

10. Precast Works

11. Chimneys and Towers

12. Retaining Walls

Skeleton frame: skeleton frame is a framed structure often used for the construction of multi-

story buildings. It incorporates a network, or system, of columns and connecting beams which support
the building's interior floors and exterior walls of RC mixes and carries all loads to the foundations.

Common examples of standard mixes are M20, M30, M40 concrete, where the number is an indication to the
strength of concrete in newton per square millimeter. Thus M30 concrete will have a compressive strength of 30
n/mm2. Moreover, a standard mix also can indicate the maximum aggregate size. Aggregates are the stone
chips used in concrete. The structure is actually a connected fame of members, each of which are firmly
connected to each other. In engineering parlance, these connections are called moment connections, which
means the two members are firmly connected to each other. Concrete frame structures have moment
connections in all most of the cases. This frame becomes very strong, resistant and durable and resists the
various loads that act on a building during its life.

Those loads include; dead loads which are the downward force on the building coming from the building itself,
including all the structural elements. Live loads; the downward force on the building coming from the expected
weight of the occupants and their possessions, including furniture, books and humans. Normally these loads are
specified in building codes and structural engineers must design buildings to carry these or greater loads. These
loads will vary with the use of space, for instance whether it is residential, office, industrial or commercial. It is
common for codes to require live loads for residential to be a minimum of about 200 kg/m2, office to be 250
kg/m2 and industrial to be 1000 kg/m2, which is the same as 1T/m2. These live loads are sometimes called
imposed loads.

Dynamic loads; these occur commonly in bridges and similar infrastructure, and are the loads created by traffic,
including braking and accelerating loads. Wind loads; this is an extremly important design factor, especially for
tall buildings, or buildings with large surface area. Buildings are designed not to resits the everyday wind
conditions, but extreme conditions that may occur once every 100 years or so. These are called design
windspeeds and are specified in the buildind codes. A building can commonly be requires to resis a wind force
of 150 kg/m2, which can be very significant force when multiplied by the surface are of the building.
Earthquake loads; in an earthquake, the ground vigrously shakes the building both horizontally and vertically.
This can cause the building to fall apart. The heavier the building, the greater the force on it. It is important to
note that both wind and earthquake impose horizontal forces on the building. Unlike the gravity forces it
normally ressits, which are vertical direction.

RC has many advantages to be preferred more than other materials or components such as steel or timber, the
table below can show the main differences:

Sl.N
Difference RC Structures Steel Structures
o

The basic material used is

Steel is the material used to take
1 Material reinforced cement concrete to take
the load
up the load

2 Cross-section of In RC structures, the cross-section The structural elements of steel

Structural Element of the structural elements is large structures have small cross-
 sections.

The steel structures are prone to

The durability of concrete is high.
rust when exposed to
High-quality RC structure is less
3 Durability environmental conditions. Hence
affected by common weather and
steel structures have less
environmental conditions.
durability.

RC structures are highly brittle in

Resistance to Steel structures are ductile in
nature. These type of structure have
4 Earthquake/Dynamic nature thus increasing their
less resistance to dynamic loads
Loads resistance to dynamic loads.
like earthquakes and wind.

RC structures have low load- The steel structures have an

5 Load Carrying Capacity carrying capacity compared with appreciable load-carrying
steel structures. capacity.

Construction of structures with

concrete consumes large amount of The steel, in general, has 60
6 Self-Weight raw materials. Hence the self- percent less weight compared to
weight of reinforced concrete concrete.
structures are high.

Reinforced concrete structure

possesses huge dead weight which Steel structures do not demand
7 Foundation
hence demands a strong foundation heavy foundation. 
to support.

In RC structures, the tensile

Steel structural elements have
strength of the concrete elements is
8 Tensile Strength high tensile strength compared to
less compared to steel structural
RC structures.
elements.

9 Labor Requirement The construction of reinforced Construction of steel structures

concrete structures is labor- requires less labor. Most of the
intensive. components are fabricated in the
 workshop and assembled at the
site.

Construction of RC structure is Construction of steel structure is

10 Construction
simple. tough.

11 Cos of construction Economical Costly

Reinforced concrete structures

Steel structures are constructed
12 Construction Speed require time for concreting, curing
with high speed.
etc. which is a slow process.

It is tough to maintain quality Better quality control can be

13 Quality control
through concrete construction. obtained in steel structures.

The fire resistance of the concrete The fire resistance of steel

14 Fire Resistance
structure is high. structure is less.

Concrete does not have any scrap The steel scraps have a good
15 Scrap Value
value. scrap value.

A properly designed and The steel frame structure has

16 Corrosion constructed reinforced concrete chances to deteriorate due to
structure is not prone to corrosion. corrosion.

The repair and cost of maintenance Steel structures can be repaired

17 Repair and Maintenance of the concrete structure are tough very easily and hence their cost
and time taking. of maintenance is less

So the obvious differences between RC and steel structures can be concluded easily from the previous table
which provides us with the reasons why RC is preferable in many construction fields and opinions and the
advantage of its strength against steel structures and other materials, also One of the main disadvantages of
concrete is its very low tensile strength that is practically exceeded at low levels of load. This results in cracking
of the concrete surfaces that in turns leads to aesthetical problems (large deflection of beams or slabs) for the
serviceability limit state as well as structural integrity problems at the ultimate limit state. On the other hand,
reinforcing steel has rather high tensile strength and a symmetrical material constitutive law under tension and
compression. However, a rebar alone that is subjected to compression fails prematurely due to buckling. For
this reasons, use of reinforcement in a RC section leads to effective structural behavior as reinforcing steel
works effectively under tension and concrete works effectively under compression and confines the
compression reinforcement. Showing the Bending Moment Diagram of a continuous beam under vertical loads
as well as the locations where reinforcing steel should be placed:

It is important to note that the collaboration between concrete and reinforcing steel is facilitated by the fact that
both materials have the same thermal expansion coefficient, which means that temperature variation does not
cause additional internal stresses in the concrete-rebar interface.

RC mixture is used to make structural elements used to build construction such as: Slabs – Beams – Columns

So in this paper, an explanation will be proposed to each structural element:

Slabs thes are the plate elemtn and carry the loads primarily by flexure.
The usually carry the vertical loads. Under the action of horizontal loads,
due to a large amount of intertia, they can carry quite large wind and
earthquake forces, and then transfer them to the beam. Slbs typically have
four edges thickness (ts) , main span (a) and secondary span (b). Main
span in the direction of transfer of larger
portion of load bigger than 50 percent, if the slab
panel is supported on its four edges then main span
equals the short direction. One way slab; it is
supported on only two edges, has only one direction of deflection, this bending direction is the main span(a) and
all slab loads are tranfered the main span(a) direction to the supporting beam. Two way slabs; are supported on
all four edges and has 2 direction of deflection, the short direction of bending is the main span of the slab, and
the long direction of bending is the secondary span of the slab and larger portion os lab loads is transferd in a
direction. (ganzoury, 2020). Slab minimum thickness has a significant effect on the deflection of slab, ECP
specifies slab deflection limits to fullfill the serviceability limit state. Slab thickness is governed by deflection
limits not strength requirment. Standard slab thickness in building 80,100,120,140,150,160 mm

No need to check deflection, therfore serviceability limit is satisfied

Therfore calculate deflection, check serviceability limit

When calculating slabs, we assume the slab has a thickness of 125 mm. so, the self
weight of each square meter of the slab would be = 0.125 x 1 x 2400 = 300 kg which is equivalent to 3kN. Now,
if we consider the finishing load to be 1 kN per meter and superimposed live load to be 2 kN per meter. So,
form this data we can estimate the slab load to be arround 6 to 7 kN per square meter.

Beams they carry the loads from the slabs and also the direct loads as
masonary walls and their self-weights. The beams may be supported on
the other beams or may be supported
by columns forming an integral part of
the frame. These are primarily the
flexural members. Applied load on beams, the beams own weight, weight of
wall carried and load carried from slab and finally the reactions of cross-
beams . Formwork is also needed to manefacture the beam, they receive
concrete in its plastic form. Form work is temporary structure as sich it
is not normally shown in the drawings. Framework is made from either wood or
mostly wood components, plywood, steel, alumnium and finally plastic. Pure alumnium is used to chemically
attack wet concrete. Alumnium is very light weight so it allows larger forming units, it also has a high reuse
value. Steel is used for heavy concrete work, and with reasonable maintance
steel will last indefinetily. However it has a very high initial cost and very high
maintance cost. Framework have some estimating issues, normally, the form
are used mkore than once, and the more usage of forms reduce the price. Wood
forms have less usage potential than alumnium or steel froms. Complicated
shapes of concrete are more expensive because of labor cost and reuse of
forms. Also a construction plan must be determined for the reuse cycle.
While calculating beams, we assume each meter of the beam has dimensions of 230 mm x 450 mm excluding
the slab thickness. We assume each 1 meter of the beam has dimension.

So, the self weight will be

arounf 3.5 kN per running meter.

Calculating walls, its known that the density of bricks varies between 1500 to 2000 kg per cubic meter. For a 6
nch thick brick wall of 3 meter height and length of 1 meter, the load per runing meter to be equal 0.150 x 1 x
2000 = 900 kg, which is equivlent to 9 kN/meter. This method can be adopted for load calulations of Brick per
runing meter for any brick type using this technique. For aerated concrete blocks and autoclaved concrete
blocks, like Aerocon or Siporex, the weight per cubic meter is between 550 to 700 kg per cubic meter.

Columns these are the vertical members in the skeleton that carrys loads from
beams and from upper columns. The loads carried may be axial or accentric.
Columns are the most important element when compared with beams and
slabs. Because, if one beam fails, it will be a local failure, a failure only within
the floor affected however, if one column fails, it can lead to the destruction of
the entire building. It’s a structural member subjected principally to
compressive stresses, concrete columns may be unreinforced, or they may be
reinforced with longitudinal bars and ties or with longitudinal bars and spiral
steel. Reinforced concrete columns have an embedded steel mesh known rebar to provide reinforcment. The
design of reinforcment can be either spiral or tied. Spiral columns are cylindrical with a continous helical bar
wrapped around the column. This spiral provides support in the transverse direction. Tied columns have closed
latera; ties spaced approximately uniformly across the column. The spacing of the ties is limited in that they
must be close enough to prevent failure between them, and far enough apart they do not interefer with the
setting of the concrete.

Calculating columns, as
it well known the self
weight og the concrete
is arround 2400 kg/m3, which is equivelant to 250 Kn and the self weight of steel is around 8000 kg/m3. So, we
ssume a column size is 230 mm x 600 mm with 1% steel and 3 eters standard height, he self weight of column
is arounf 100 kg per floor, that id equal to 10 Kn. While doing calculations, we ssume the self weight of column
is between 19 to 15 Kn per floor. In the end, after calculating the enrire load on a column, the factor of safety
should be added, which is important for any building design for the safe and convenient performance of the
building its design life duration.

Summary

The papers will contain the definition of RC which could be told as a mix between cement concrete and
reinforcements, this combination is made to take advantage of the huge strength of concrete and tense strength
of steel at the same time in order to act together to resist many types of loads, using RC columns, beams and
slabs to distribute loads and weights on buildings, because building materials are so sensitive and need to be
carefully made, engineered and well-studied. Also in this paper all structural elements include RC will be
mentioned and explained with detailed calculations in order to evaluate the procedures of using RC skeletons in
residential buildings and to highlight its importance and impact on architectural studies and designs too. The
idea of choosing one certain building material is considered to be the most concerning and debatable idea for
clients, architects, constructors and civil engineers in construction industry nowadays, as each of them have a
preferable type of material depending on costs, ways of having the material and efficiency of this material. Our
selected material for this papers is RC (reinforced concrete) which is widely used currently among construction
fields as it has a noticeable impact on this type of industry and building which will be explained in details in the
papers. The substance which outcomes from the composition of concrete and reinforced steel is called
Reinforced Concrete (RC). Reinforced concrete is a widely spread building material as it is strong, easy to work
with, adaptable, durable, and affordable. Skeleton frame: skeleton frame is a framed structure often used for the
construction of multi-story buildings. Common examples of standard mixes are M20, M30, M40 concrete,
where the number is an indication to the strength of concrete in newton per square millimeter. The structure is
actually a connected fame of members, each of which are firmly connected to each other. Normally these loads
are specified in building codes and structural engineers must design buildings to carry these or greater loads.
These loads will vary with the use of space, for instance whether it is residential, office, industrial or
commercial. Dynamic loads; these occur commonly in bridges and similar infrastructure, and are the loads
created by traffic, including braking and accelerating loads. Wind loads; this is an extremly important design
factor, especially for tall buildings, or buildings with large surface area. 3 Durability The durability of concrete
is high. High-quality RC structure is less affected by common weather and environmental conditions. The steel
structures are prone to rust when exposed to environmental conditions. 4 Resistance to Earthquake/Dynamic
Loads RC structures are highly brittle in nature. These type of structure have less resistance to dynamic loads
like earthquakes and wind. Steel structures are ductile in nature thus increasing their resistance to dynamic
loads. 6 Self-Weight Construction of structures with concrete consumes large amount of raw materials. Hence
the self-weight of reinforced concrete structures are high. The steel, in general, has 60 percent less weight
compared to concrete. 7 Foundation Reinforced concrete structure possesses huge dead weight which hence
demands a strong foundation to support. Steel structures do not demand heavy foundation. 9 Labor Requirement
The construction of reinforced concrete structures is labor-intensive. Construction of steel structures requires
less labor. 12 Construction Speed Reinforced concrete structures require time for concreting, curing etc. which
is a slow process. Steel structures are constructed with high speed. This results in cracking of the concrete
surfaces that in turns leads to aesthetical problems (large deflection of beams or slabs) for the serviceability
limit state as well as structural integrity problems at the ultimate limit state. On the other hand, reinforcing steel
has rather high tensile strength and a symmetrical material constitutive law under tension and compression.
Slabs thes are the plate elemtn and carry the loads primarily by flexure. Slbs typically have four edges thickness
(ts) , main span (a) and secondary span (b). Now, if we consider the finishing load to be 1 kN per meter and
superimposed live load to be 2 kN per meter. So, form this data we can estimate the slab load to be arround 6 to
7 kN per square meter. Beams they carry the loads from the slabs and also the direct loads as masonary walls
and their self-weights. While calculating beams, we assume each meter of the beam has dimensions of 230 mm
x 450 mm excluding the slab thickness. Calculating walls, its known that the density of bricks varies between
1500 to 2000 kg per cubic meter. Columns these are the vertical members in the skeleton that carrys loads from
beams and from upper columns. Calculating columns, as it well known the self weight og the concrete is around
2400 kg/m3, which is equivalent to 250 Kn and the self weight of steel is around 8000 kg/m3. While doing
calculations, we assume the self weight of column is between 19 to 15 Kn per floor.