International Symposium on Advances in Earthquake & Structural Engineering, October24-26, 2007

Sleyman Demirel University, Isparta-Antalya, Turkey

Cost Comparison of Elastic and Plastic Design of a Steel

Structure with a Concrete Structure
M. Metin Kose, Ismail Sirikci
K. Sutcu Imam University, Department of Civil Engineering, Kahramanmaras,
Turkey

Abstract
Although Turkey is located on earthquake region, most of the residential structures are
made by concrete and prejudice to steel construction still continues. Cost and time
comparisons of the steel and concrete structure are still made by investors but very
limited works on the cost reduction on steel structures are available. In this study,
concrete and steel structures with the same floor planes were designed and cost of the
structures were compared with each other. Concrete structure was designed by using
STA4CAD software. Design of steel structure was performed using elastic and plastic
design method. Elastic design of steel structure was performed by using SAP2000
software. In plastic design process, rigid plastic hinge method was used. A separate
computer program was written for plastic design of steel structure to run with
SAP2000. Member-end forces determined by SAP2000 and then entered to the
computer code to find the location of plastic hinges. Model in SAP2000 was then
modified by entering the plastic hinges and then rerun. This cycle was continued until
model becomes unstable. Once design process of reinforced concrete and steel
structures was completed, cost comparison of these three structures was performed. It
was found that plastic design procedure reduced total cost of the structure up to 16%
for the selected floor plan. Although cost of steel structure is higher than concrete
structure, completion time of steel construction is about one third of completion time of
concrete structures.
Keywords: Steel, Concrete, Structures, Plastic design, Elastic design, Cost comparison