Concrete vs steel

What are the environmental, capital cost and lifetime cost differences between a building with a
steel frame and one built using concrete? David Weight of cost consultant Currie & Brown
applies the firms Live Options modelling system to find out

01 Introduction
Which is more sustainable - concrete or steel-framed buildings? This is a question people have
asked themselves time and time again and, as a result, many comparisons have been made.
Currie & Brown was keen to examine the issue taking into account wider considerations and,
with the help of services engineer Hoare Lea & Partners, to evaluate the energy benefits of the
increased thermal inertia of concrete construction.
Increasing awareness of the importance of sustainability, and especially the latest amendments to
Part L of the Building Regulations, make this even more pertinent.
This article seeks to compare a steel-framed office building using composite floor construction steel decking supported on beams with a concrete topping - with an alternative of a concrete
frame with insitu concrete floors. The evaluation will cover changes in capital costs, energy
running costs, embodied energy costs and other differences in environmental impact.
The Live Options model
The whole-life costs presented here are based on Currie & Browns Live Options software,
which is an integrated suite of geometric, engineering and energy calculation programs.
Whether the development is an office, school, hospital or warehouse, the process starts in the
same way, by using a basic but faculty-specific design template. This is modified to incorporate,
for example, changes in size, shape and operational performance.
The program integrates fabric and building services components and can show how costs change
when a building element is changed - for example, increasing the proportion of glazing in the
facade. It does this by providing a detailed breakdown of changes and shows the capital costs of
physical items and the effect these have on building performance.
Any changes to heating and cooling loads will be quantified in terms of the effect on, say,
chillers and the electrical supply loads.
Changes to the energy profile of the facility are also calculated. The program uses this data to
assess the cost effectiveness and overall viability of alternative solutions when considered
against the facilitys projected economic life.

The model also takes account of repair and maintenance costs. This includes regular inspections,
planned and unplanned maintenance and replacement costs for individual building components.
These costs are automatically cash-flowed, discounted and summarised and net present costs are
shown against each component, which assists in making choices and in value-engineering.

02 Changing the frame from steel to concrete: Design strategy

The thermal inertia of a building determines how quickly the temperature responds to changes in
heat gain or loss.
If a buildings thermal inertia can be increased, its temperature fluctuates less, so its daily
response to weather conditions
or internal heat gains and losses will be more limited and slowed. This can be used by designers
to control indoor temperatures without the need for mechanical cooling and can help reduce
building carbon emissions.
Inevitably there will be periods during the warmer parts of the year when mechanical cooling is
required. It is therefore common for buildings to be naturally cooled when temperatures allow,
but to switch to mechanical cooling when ambient temperatures are high.
This mixed-mode cooling strategy will use the thermal inertia of a building to moderate the
temperature swings. The mass of the building is exposed to the occupied space to enable heat
transfer between the concrete and the space. During the day heat is absorbed by the slab, thus
limiting the rise in temperature within the space.
The heat must be removed overnight, however, if the process is to be repeated the next day. A
night cooling strategy can be used to remove this heat by allowing cooler night air to flow
through the building either by opening windows automatically - security concerns allowing - or
by using fans to draw the air through the building. In this way, the concrete is cooled down.
The concrete gives up its stored coolth in two ways. First, by being exposed to the room to allow
a passive exchange of heat. Second, it can exchange heat with supply air in a raised floor
plenum.
The model used assumes an insitu concrete floor, which will be thicker than the concrete layer in
a composite floor. In the context of night-to-day cooling, only the surface 50-70 mm (opinions
vary) will be of benefit and so for the top surface, the concrete system will not have an advantage
over a thinner composite floor system over 24 hours. However, the increased depth can help over
a longer period, such as a few days heat wave, when the deeper reserves of thick concrete will
help.
Most importantly, above the occupied space, while the steel frame is assumed to have a
conventional ceiling, the flat slab concrete floors could be partly exposed.

One option, which was considered for use in this model, was to apply just a spray-applied
coating or even just paint, which would produce a big saving in ceiling costs and in further
reducing the required slab-to-slab height. However, this tends to produce too much acoustic
resonance in an open-plan office. Therefore, the model opts for acoustic ceiling panels over just a
proportion of the area, so that the coolth would be felt from air flow between the ceiling panels.
In a modern well-sealed, well-insulated building, the slab would not cool much overnight, so it
needs to be re-charged sufficiently to cool it down overnight in the summer. We have assumed
that, during the summer, the air supply fans continue to push air through the floor void overnight.
In the occupied space, in addition to windows at the normal level, there would be high-level
bottom-hung inward opening windows, which would be opened at night in hot summer periods,
to allow the space and underside of the slab to be cooled overnight. The operation of the
windows needs to be carefully controlled otherwise the building becomes too cold in the
mornings and requires heating for the first hour or two, which would be counter-productive.
There are two alternative approaches to this:
The automated approach using window actuators, which have to be linked back to the building
management system for both environmental control and fire safety. For windows of more than 1
m wide, more than one actuator per window is usually needed and these have to be linked.
All this has to be very carefully balanced and controlled. Otherwise, it could result in being too
cool in the mornings and require heating for the first hour or two, which would be counterproductive. For automatically controlled windows, one should allow extra money and time to
commission the building during different weather conditions, but especially during a hot period.
The manual approach, whereby a caretaker goes around and opens or shuts the high-level
windows as necessary. This approach has been popular with local authorities for schools.
We have assumed the second option and assume that even if well operated, there will be some
increase in the pre-heating loads and time for the concrete solution.
The exposed concrete system can be restrictive in that lighting positions and circuitry and
ductwork have to be carefully co-ordinated, unless uplighters are used - and these are less energy
efficient. Electrical leads may need to run through the slab unless they can be routed over the
limited area of ceiling panels. This, in turn, can impair having separate tenancies on different
floors.
However, a flat slab or waffle system makes the job of the mechanical subcontractor easier
especially for ductwork, in not having to duck and dive around the beams needed for the
composite floor on steel framed buildings. The use of the thermal inertia in this way can often
alleviate the need for cooling altogether, but we have assumed that occupant density and
consequential internal gains are high, so that chilled beams are used in both options - though less
extensively in the concrete solution.

There are proprietary patented systems, such as Termodeck, that use the thermal inertia in a more
active manner. See www.termodeck.co.uk for details.

03 Changing the frame from steel to concrete: Capital cost changes

The building uses a repetitive column grid spacing of 7.5 7.5 m. The structural steel model was
developed in conjunction with Corus and the beam depth is assessed automatically based on a
span depth ratio for the beams and an assumed floor thickness for 140 mm (although such values
may be overridden).
Modelling involves:
Switching from a steel frame with composite floors to a concrete frame with insitu concrete
floors. The model automatically assesses the column sizes and floor thicknesses (based on
guidance from the Concrete Centre). The overall effect on the storey module is a saving of 200
mm because downstand beams are not needed for insitu concrete floors. It allows for a deflection
allowance of 25 mm, based on floor spans.
Changing the ceiling type. For a high acoustic performance, we could use acoustic panels that
have a convex curve over about two-thirds of the area. However, we have assumed a cheaper
option of a spray-applied coating to the underside of the slab, with flat acoustic panels over onethird of the area.
Increasing the margin on the heating load to account for raising the temperature after cold
weekends or after the Christmas break.
Slightly reducing of cooling load for the effect of thermal inertia.
Increasing preliminaries just 1%, assuming that about 80% of preliminaries costs are timerelated. It is worth noting that this may increase interest charges, since usually insitu concrete
structures would take a bit longer to build. However, this does not necessarily mean the overall
development period would increase, because the off-site construction period for steel and
associated lead-in time will be greater than for insitu concrete. Overall, there is not usually a
significant difference in the overall development time between the two forms of construction
once the design and lead-in times have been considered. A lot depends on the particular
contractors and their experiences, and opinions vary a lot.
At this point, there is a very slight saving for the concrete frame option of about 32,000. Now
we want to use the thermal inertia to greater benefit, so we:
Add opening fanlights to charge the floor void and slab from cool air at night. We added an
extra-over cost for opening lights, assuming an openable area of one-20th of the gross floor area.
Reduce cooling load. Live Options automatically advises on this and pre-heating loads
according to a traditional assessment of a buildings thermal weight - calculated from the

remodelled components admittance values. However, this is adjusted according to advice from
Hoare Lea, so the peak cooling load is reduced by 12 W/m.