The stability of high rise buildings retrofitted with IBS hollow slabs

Saddam Hussein Ali

Introduction

A high rise building is a structure used for residential or commercial purposes. As a matter of fact, the outside appearance of the building plays a major part to describe a building as a high rise building. In a small city that has no large buildings, a 6 story building will appear as a high rise. While in a huge city, the building should be of 80 to 100 stories in order to be seen and described as a skyscraper. In other words, the building cannot be described as a tall building neither by the number of floors nor by their heights. Structural engineers say that a building can be described as tall if it is influenced by lateral loads and prone to sway. The high rise building must be able to resist all the lateral and gravity loads. When designing a high rise structure, it is designed to withstand gravity and lateral loads in order to improve its stability. Some people think that gravity and lateral loads are the same but the fact is that these are completely two different types of loads. Gravity loads are the loads influencing the high rise buildings in the downward direction. They are a product of the self-weight of the buildings construction materials such as columns, beams, roofs, walls, slabs and so on. These materials implement vertical loads on the building. Those loads are called dead loads. Gravity loads are also a product of live loads that arise mainly from the furniture, peoples weight and so on. So gravity loads can be either a dead load or a live load. Whereas lateral loads are only a product of live loads. Lateral loads influence high rise buildings horizontally. They apply a horizontal force on the body of the building. Lateral loads are typically a product of winds and earthquakes. The assessment of loads on the building must be done correctly in order to ensure a safe and stable structure. Gravity loads can be assessed easily and accurately using members sizes and

materials densities but lateral loads are very difficult to assist and predict. Thus, engineers have to make as much effort as possible to ensure the stability and safety of high rise buildings against lateral loads. Winds cause severe damages to high rise buildings. As the wind blows against a building, it creates a positive pressure on the side of the building. After the wind hits the building, it builds up a negative pressure on the leeward side. The positive pressure acts towards the body of the building while the negative pressure acts away from the buildings body. Add to that, when the wind enters the building through openings, walls and roofs might be prone to both the negative and positive pressure cause by winds. Since the wind can act on the building from any direction, the designer has to take into account the dangers that lateral loads can impose on high rise buildings. The wind speed is very slow near the ground surface due to friction. As the height increases, the wind speed increases dramatically. The upper floors of a high rise building experience larger wind force than the lower floors and that is due to the increasing height which increases the moment arm about the base. There are many factors that affect the wind loads and will talk about them later on. The buildings floor generally acts as a wearing surface. The design of the floors in high rise buildings should be strong in order to be able to carry loads without excessive deflection which jeopardize the stability of the building. There are different types of floors which are used in the construction of high rise buildings such as reinforced concrete slab floors, precast slab floors, pre-stressed concrete slab floors, hollow core slab floors, and so on. The selection of the floor system is of great importance because it may influence the structure behavior and resistance. The floor system is the main component that carries the gravity load. The main function of the floor system (slabs) is to distribute the lateral loads imposed on the building and deliver it to the other buildings components like beams and columns till they reach the foundations. Therefore, when designing the floor system, it should be as light as possible to reduce the gravity load on the foundations, reduce any future damages to the structures components, and enhance the buildings seismic resistance. In other words, the designer has to design the slab taking into account the importance of improving the strength to weight ratio. The slab has to be strong and at the same time as light as possible in order to maintain the tall buildings stability.

In this study, two types of flooring systems will be used and analyzed. The first one is reinforced concrete slab and the second one is hollow core slabs. Reinforced concrete slabs are the most common type of slabs used nowadays in all types of constructions. They are called as the conventional slabs. From the name, it is very obvious that they are made of concrete and reinforcement bars. They can be one-way and two way slabs and in some cases they are pre-stressed in order to increase their strength for stability purpose. They also can be cast in site or in a factory and then brought to the site and this type is called as precast reinforced concrete slab. Reinforced concrete slabs have high strength, high tensile strength, good thermal resistance, and high durability. Hollow core slabs were introduced to the construction world during the 1950s. They are actually a type of precast slabs with pre-stressed concrete. Their application is limited to one-way spanning. This type of slabs has holes or voids along its full length. During production, the length of the slab can be up to 100 meters. After that, it is cut into the needed dimensions using saws. The holes make the weight of the slab lighter comparing to the other types of slabs of the same dimensions and strength. That gives the slab an advantage over the other types of slabs. The slab thickness varies from 12 cm to 50 cm.

Problem statement
In the few last decades, high rise buildings started to exist and become a worldwide trend. Each country is trying to prove itself and its existence by building high rise buildings. In most cases, a high rise building is defined as a building that can be affected by the action of later loads resulting from winds and earthquakes. Currently, statistics indicated that there are about 132 high rise buildings in the capital city of Canada alone Toronto under the process of construction. This shows clearly that high rise buildings are something that shapes the any countrys integrity and prosperity. High rise buildings do not only contribute to the development of the countrys reputation only but they also contribute to the countrys economy power. Furthermore, Populations are getting higher while there is no enough area to accommodate those populations. Therefore, high rise buildings can solve such a problem.

The main issue with high rise building is how to make them resistant and stable when subjected to gravity and lateral loads. Those loads threaten the stability of high rise buildings greatly and ignoring or less attention to the impact of these loads during the design stage can lead to the loss of humans lives in the near future. Gravity loads come mainly from the sizes and weights of the components of the building. The lighter the components are, the less gravity loads will be applied on the foundations. The selection of a lighter floor system will reduce the gravity loads on the foundation and that will improve the stability of the building against gravity loads because the floor system is the main component that distributes the loads during the life-time of the building. Lateral loads arise from winds and earthquakes. Lateral loads are more difficult to predict and estimate than gravity loads; however, their effects can be reduced. But only wind loads will be focused on in this study. Two types of floor systems will be taken into account in this study and they are: reinforced concrete slab floor and hollow core slab floor. As a matter of fact, reinforced slabs are being used widely in high rise buildings but hollow core slabs have not commonly been used in high rise buildings. There is no much information about the behavior of hollow core slabs in a high rise building and how the stability of the high rise building will be when using hollow core slab floor. This study will examine the stability of high rise buildings when subjected to gravity loads and wind loads using the conventional reinforced concrete floor system. It will also study the stability of the very same building subjected to the same loads using hollow core floor system and compare the results of both flooring systems.

Objectives

1- To develop a 3D model for a high rise building. 2- To analyze and study the stability of the high rise building subjected to both gravity and wind loads using the conventional reinforced concrete slab floor.

3- To analyze and study the stability of the same high rise building subjected to both gravity and wind loads when retrofitted with hollow core slab floor. 4- To compare the behavior of reinforced concrete floor system and the hollow core floor system and analyze their contribution to the high rise buildings stability.

Scope of the study

The attempt of this study is to study the overall stability of a high rise building using two different types of floor systems via a 3D developed model. Those systems are the conventional reinforced concrete slab floor system and hollow core slab floor system. The building will be subjected to two types of loads which are the gravity loads applied by the components of the material and the lateral load applied by the wind.