Description

The general arrangement of a five-storey building is shown in drawing

The upper four floors are designed for general office loading plus an allowance for partitions,
the ground floor for use for retail premises and the basement for general storage purposes.

The building is provided with a central core containing two lifts, a general staircase and an
access well for services to all floors. The wall enclosing the area provides lateral stability to
the structure as a whole. An additional fire escape staircase (not shown) will be attached to
the outside of the building. The intended working life is at least 50 years.

The minimum fire periods required by the building regulations are as follows:

Ground and upper storeys: offices and shops (not sprinklered), building height above
ground 18m, 1h
Basement storey: storage (not sprinklered), depth of basement 10m, 1.5h

Concrete quality and cover requirements

External surfaces of the perimeter columns and beams are likely to be exposed to cyclic wet
and dry conditions, class XC 4 (table 3.10). a suitable concrete strength class is C 25 30 with
45 mm nominal cover (table 3.10). for internal surfaces, exposure class XC1 applies and 25 mm
is appropriate:

So for concrete strength, we have class C 25 30 and nominal cover we have 45 mm for external
and 25 mm for internal.

Beam and slab floor construction

Floor slabs (ground and upper floors)

For all the span of a ribbed one-way continuous slab and a characteristic imposed load
5KN / m2 , try a span/effective depth ratio of 25.

Allowing for 12 mm bars with 45 mm nominal cover gives an estimated overall depth
4800 25 45 12 / 2 240mm say. If a 200 mm deep trough mould is used with a 40 mm thick
flange, overall depth 240mm

Fire resistance
Allowing for the design to be based on no more than 15 per cent moment distribution, the slab
may be taken as continuous. For the ground floor (minimum fire period 1.5 h), the required
minimum are (from table 3.9):

Flange thickness: 100 mm Axis distance (to centre of bars): 15 mm