International Journal of Engineering Research ISSN:2319-6890(online),2347-5013(print)

Volume No.5 Issue: Special 3 pp: 545-548 27-28 Feb. 2016

Approaches to Beam, Slab & Staircase Designing Using Limit State Design
Method for Achieving Optimal Stability Conditions
Utpal Kumar Nandy, Shravani Nandy, Antara Nandy
C.M.D, B.U. Builders & Consultants Pvt. Ltd, ISO 9001:2000 (QMS); Add: ‘NILANJAN’, D1/114, Sector-
IV, Vinay Nagar, Gwalior (M.P.)-474012, INDIA
Email: bubuildersconsultants@gmail.com

Abstract- Building design and construction of multi-story ;

buildings involves a network of highly complex and
meticulous processes. It is imperative to carry out these
processes with great care and concern for achieving
desired levels of stability conditions. Using the ultimate
load values, the designing of essential structural
members have been outlined in the paper. The structural Further,
elements used as a basis for carrying out the design
calculations include beams, slabs and staircase. The
paper presents the various steps of calculations required
for computing the correct values. The necessary
parameters and design criteria have been shown that will
facilitate the design as well as evaluation of the
structures. A base plan has been used as an illustrative
example to conduct the calculations on. Therefore, the final load,
Keywords: Limit State Design, Reinforced beam,
Reinforced Slab, Staircase, Ultimate Load

1. Introduction
1.1 Beams
Load on concrete,
Beams are horizontal structural members constructed below
the slab and are connected to the columns. These members
span along the length of a given edge. Beams are Load on steel,
responsible for carrying the load of the structural elements
built above and then transmitting the load to the columns
The factor is called the equivalent area of the
connected to it. Beams can be constructed using wood, steel,
section.
concrete, reinforced cement concrete and even plastic. The
construction of beams can be carried out in two ways i.e. When the depth and the breadth of a beam needs to follow
cast-in situ and laying of prefabricated beams. Beams are certain restrictions due to various reasons such as enhancing
constructed at an average distance of 3m centre to centre. By the appearance, it becomes essential to provide steel on the
suitably fixing the length and depth of the beam, the compression side of the beam as well. If the permissible
requirement of the number of beams can be reduced and dimension given by the expression, , are greater
hence the overall construction cost can be controlled. than the restricted dimension then the moment of resistance
with respect to compression with smaller than the applied
1.2 Design of Beams bending moment. Steel provided on the compressive side
When a beam is subjected to a bending moment,
increases the capacity of the beam to resist compressive
compressive and tensile stresses are set up in its fibres. The
forces without increasing its size. Beams of such kind are
intensity of stress in any fibre is proportional to its distance
known as doubly reinforced beams (Krishna & Jain, 1977).
from the neutral axis. As long as the stresses in the concrete
Let Asc and At be the areas of steel in the compression and
are within their elastic limits, the stresses in steel and
concrete are in their modular ratio and the beam behaves tension zones of the section respectively. Since plane
homogeneously. The tensile stress in concrete surrounding sections of the beam remain plane after bending, we have:-

the steel is equal to , where is the tensile stress at

any stage of loading (Plain and Reinforced Concrete-Code
of Practice, 2000).
The equations used for the design of reinforced cement
concrete beams are given below (Plain and Reinforced
Concrete-Code of Practice, 2000).
Where, N, a and d represent the neutral axis coefficient,
width and depth of the beam section while and are
the compressive stresses in the concrete of beam. The value
of the neutral axis coefficient can be calculated using the
following equation (Krishna & Jain, 1977).

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 International Journal of Engineering Research ISSN:2319-6890(online),2347-5013(print)
Volume No.5 Issue: Special 3 pp: 545-548 27-28 Feb. 2016

Steps in beam-design are given as follows (Krishna &

Jain, 1977):-
1. Calculation of the minimum depth required with
respect to the safe compression for the given
bending moment

Here B stands for the effective length, for the

thickness of slab and represents the stress in
concrete. Also, N is the co-efficient of neutral axis
and d is the depth of the beam.

2.Calculation of the minimum depth required for the Figure 8: Roof Beam Plan of the multi-storey building
upper limit of shear stress
3. Calculation of the economical depth

Here ‘r’ represents the ratio of the cost of

steel to that of concrete.
4. Calculation of the tensile steel required
5. Provide shear reinforcement if the shear stress
exceeds the safe value for concrete

Figure 9: Slab layout Plan of the multi-storey building

Figure 7: Plinth Beam Plan of a multi-storey building
2. Design of Slabs
Reinforced concrete slabs are the horizontal members
acting as a top covering in a building and spans to the entire
length of the floor. In the ground floor, a thick concrete slab
supported on foundations or constructed directly on the
subsoil is used. However, in the case of high rise buildings
or skyscrapers the slabs are connected to the steel frames to
create the floors and ceilings at each level. These slabs are
thinner and are pre-cast concrete slabs. Cast-in situ slabs are
constructed in buildings that are of much smaller scale in
comparison (Krishna & Jain, 1977).

In a rectangular slab with uniformly distributed

load there is only one plane of bending and the load is
transferred to these two supports. However, if a slab is
supported on all the four edges, the load is transferred to all
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 International Journal of Engineering Research
Volume No.5 Issue: Special 3 pp: 545-548
these supports. Thus the bending moments and the
deflection is reduced considerably thereby reducing the need
for thicker slabs. The load is carried in two directions to the
respective supports, and the bending moment is much less
than what it would have been if the load was carried in a
single direction only.
The slabs are designed for the bending moments
WB. B2/8 and WL.L2/8 per unit width along the short and
long spans respectively. The depth is calculated for the
larger of the two values. Since the moment in the short span
is larger therefore the effective depth needs to be higher in
this case. Therefore, the reinforcement parallel to short span
should be placed below and parallel to the long span. Hence,
the available effective depth of the slab for long span will be
smaller than that for the shorter span.
In the given project, to design the slab the
following calculations need to be carried out.
Let the thickness of the slab be 15 cm or 150 mm.
Dimensions of slab-1= 5.5m x 10m
The effective spans=5.86m and10.36 m
Maximum bending moment along the short span=
Maximum bending moment along the long span=
Therefore, an effective depth of 13 cm needs to be provided.
Area of steel required along the short span=
NCASE@2016 doi : 10.17950/ijer/v5i3/007
ISSN:2319-6890(online),2347-5013(print)
27-28 Feb. 2016
Use 12mm dia. steel bars 10.0 cm apart from centre to
centre. As the steel bars for long span will be placed above
these bars for short span, effective depth for long span will
be 11.4 cm.
Area of steel required for long span=
Use 10mm dia. bars at 12.0 cm centre to centre distance.
Shear force on short edges = 1/2 wB= 1100 kg
Shear force on long edges =
Shear stress at long edges
= 0.993 kg/ sq cm
Shear stress at short edges = 1.21 kg/ sq cm
Therefore, the slab is safe at shear. Alternate bars can
be bent up in each span without exceeding the permissible
limits. The bending of bars can be done at 1/7th span from
centre of supports. The ends of the bars must be provided
with hooks.
3. Design of Staircase
There are several arrangements that can be adopted to
build reinforced concrete staircases. The simplest type of
staircase is the one in which individual R.C. steps can
project out of the wall as cantilevers. If a flat ceiling is
required, an inclined R.C. slab cantilevering from the wall
and supporting the steps can be built. The usual practice in
the proportioning of staircase is to keep the rise equal to 15
cm to 20 cm and the tread equal to 23 cm to 25 cm.
exclusive of the nosing that can be about 2 cm (Krishna &
Jain, 1977).
Figure 10: Section of the multi-storey building showing the
staircase
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 International Journal of Engineering Research
Volume No.5 Issue: Special 3 pp: 545-548
Figure 11: Detailed Section specifically showing the
staircase of the multi-storey building
To design the staircase, the number of treads and risers need
to be calculated first followed by the weight of the slab
connected to the stair-case. Depth of the staircase, D =
D=16.2 cm
Reinforcement, At =
At = 11.5 sq cm
NCASE@2016 doi : 10.17950/ijer/v5i3/007
ISSN:2319-6890(online),2347-5013(print)
27-28 Feb. 2016
Using 12 mm dia. bars, number of bars required in 1.25 m
width =
Spacing of 12 mm steel bars = 125/13 = 9.6 cm.
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