Chapter 1

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY, SERVICE LIFE

AND MAINTENANCE CONCEPTS
FOR CONCRETE STRUCTURES

INTRODUCTION
The task of the structural engineer is to design a structure, which
satisfies the needs of the client and the user. Specifically the
structure should be safe, economical to build and maintain, and
aesthetically pleasing. But what does the design process involve?

Design is a word that means different things to different people.

In dictionaries the word is described as a mental plan, preliminary
sketch, pattern, construction, plot or invention. Even among those
closely involved with the built environment there are considerable
differences in interpretation. Architects, for example, may interpret
design as being the production of drawings and models to show what
a new building will actually look like. To civil and structural
engineers, however, design is taken to mean the entire planning
process for a new building structure, bridge, tunnel, road, etc. from
outline concepts and feasibility studies through mathematical
calculations to working drawings, which could show every last nut
and bolt in the project. Together with the drawings there will be bill of
quantities, a specification and a contract, which will form the
necessary legal and organizational framework within which a
contractor, under the supervision of engineers and architects, can
construct the scheme.

There are many inputs into the engineering design process as

illustrated by Fig.1.1 including:
 1. client brief
2. experience
3. imagination
4. a site investigation
5. model and laboratory tests
6. economic factors
7. environmental factors.

Site investigation Experience Model and lab tests

Engineering design

Material strengths

Client Conceptual Detailed

Working
brief design design
drawings
(stage 1) (stage 2)

Environmental loading

Environmental Economic Imagination

factors factors

Fig.1.1 Inputs into the design process

The starting-point for the designer is normally a conceptual

brief from the client, who may be a private developer or perhaps a
government body. The conceptual brief may simply consist of some
sketches prepared by the client or perhaps a detailed set of architect’s
drawings. Experience is crucially important, and a client will always
demand that the firm he is employing to do the design has previous
experience designing similar structures.

Although imagination is thought by some to be entirely the

domain of the architect, this is not so. For engineers and technicians
an imagination of how elements of structure interrelate in three
dimensions is essential, as is an appreciation of the loadings to which
structures might be subject in certain circumstances. In addition,

Chapter 1 2
imaginative solutions to engineering problems are often required to
save money, time, or to improve safety or quality.

A site investigation is essential to determine the strength and

other characteristics of the ground on which the structure will be
founded. If the structure is unusual in any way, or subject to
abnormal loadings, model or laboratory tests may also be used to help
determine how the structure will behave.

In today’s economic climate a structural designer must be

constantly aware of the cost implications of his or her design. On the
one hand design should aim to achieve economy of materials in the
structure, but over-refinement can lead to an excessive number of
different sizes and components in the structure, and labour costs will
rise. In addition the actual cost of the designer’s time should not be
excessive, or this will undermine the employer’s competitiveness. The
idea is to produce a workable design achieving reasonable economy of
materials, while keeping manufacturing and construction costs down,
and avoiding unnecessary design and research expenditure. Attention
to detailing and buildability of structures cannot be overemphasized
in design. Most failures are as a result of poor detailing rather than
incorrect analysis.

Designers must also understand how the structure will fit into
the environment for which it is designed. Today many proposals for
engineering structures stand or fall on this basis, so it is part of the
designer’s job to try to anticipate and reconcile the environmental
priorities of the public and government.

The engineering design process can often be divided into two

stages: (1) a feasibility study involving a comparison of the alternative
forms of structure and selection of the most suitable type and (2) a
detailed design of the chosen structure. The success of stage 1, the
conceptual design, relies to a large extent on engineering judgment

Chapter 1 3
and instinct, both of which are the outcome of many years’ experience
of designing structures. Stage 2, the detailed design, also requires
these attributes but is usually more dependent upon a thorough
understanding of the codes of practice for structural design.

Basis of Design
Table 1.1 illustrates some risk factors that are associated with
activities in which people engage. It can be seen that some degree of
risk is associated with air and road travel. However, people normally
accept that the benefits of mobility outweigh the risks. Staying in
buildings, however, has always been regarded as fairly safe. The risk
of death or injury due to structural failure is extremely low, but as we
spend most of our life in buildings this is perhaps just as well.

Table 1.1. Comparative death risk per 108 persons exposed

Mountaineering (international) 2700

Air travel (international) 120
Deep water trawling 59
Car travel 56
Coal mining 21
Construction sites 8
Manufacturing 2
Accidents at home 2
Fire at home 0.1
Structural failures 0.002

As far as the design of structures for safety is concerned, it is

seen as the process of ensuring that stresses due to loading at all
critical points in a structure have a very low chance of exceeding the
strength of materials used at these critical points. Figure 1.2
illustrates this in statistical terms.

Chapter 1 4
 In design there exist within the structure a number of critical
points (e.g. beam mid-spans) where the design process in
concentrated. The normal distribution curve on the left of Fig.1.2
represents the actual maximum material stresses at these critical
points due to the loading. Because loading varies according to
occupancy and environmental conditions, and because design is an
imperfect process, the material stresses will vary about a modal value
— the peak of the curve. Similarly the normal distribution curve on
the right represents material strengths at these critical points, which
are also not constant due to the variability of manufacturing
conditions.

The overlap between the two curves represents a possibility that

failure may take place at one of the critical points, as stress due to
loading exceeds the strength of the material. In order for the
structure to be safe the overlapping area must be kept to a minimum.
The degree of overlap between the two curves can be minimized by
using one of three distinct design philosophies, namely:

1. permissible stress design

2. load factor method
3. limit state design.
Number of occurrences

Strengths

Effects of
loadings Critical
overlapping
area

Chapter 1 Stress level 5

Fig.1.2 Relationship between stress and strength
Permissible Stress Design
In permissible stress design, sometimes referred to as modular ratio
or elastic design, the stresses in the structure at working loads are not
allowed to exceed a certain proportion of the yield stress of the
construction material, i.e. the stress levels are limited to the elastic
range. By assuming that the stress-strain relationship over this range
is linear, it is possible to calculate the actual stresses in the material
concerned.

However, although it modelled real building performance under

actual conditions, this philosophy had two major drawbacks. Firstly,
permissible design methods sometimes tended to overcomplicate the
design process and also led to conservative solutions. Secondly, as
the quality of materials increased and the safety margins decreased,
the assumption that stress and strain are directly proportional
became unjustifiable for materials such as concrete, making it
impossible to estimate the true factors of safety.

Load Factor Design

Load factor or plastic design was developed to take account of the
behaviour of the structure once the yield point of the construction
material had been reached. This approach involved calculating the
collapse load of the structure. The working load was derived by
dividing the collapse load by a load factor. This approach simplified
methods of analysis and allowed actual factors of safety to be
calculated. It was slow in gaining acceptance and was superseded by
the more comprehensive limit state approach.

Limit State Design

Originally formulated in the former Soviet Union in the 1930s and
developed in Europe in the 1960s, limit state design can perhaps be
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seen as a compromise between the permissible and load factor
methods. It is in fact a more comprehensive approach, which takes
into account both methods in appropriate ways. Most modern
structural codes of practice are now based on the limit state
approach.

As limit state philosophy forms the basis of the design methods

in most modern codes of practice for structural design, it is essential
that the design methodology is fully understood. This then is the
purpose of the following subsections.

Ultimate and Serviceability Limit States

The aim of limit design is to achieve acceptable probabilities that a
structure will not become unfit for its intended use during its design
life, that is, the structure will not reach a limit state. There are many
ways in which a structure could become unfit for use, including
excessive conditions of bending, shear, compression, deflection and
cracking (Fig.1.3). Each of these mechanisms is a limit state whose
effect on the structure must be individually assessed.

Some of the above limit states, e.g. deflection and cracking,

principally affect the appearance of the structure. Others, e.g.
bending, shear and compression, may lead to partial or complete
collapse of the structure. Those limit states which can cause failure of
the structure are termed ultimate limit states. The others are
categorized as serviceability limit states. The ultimate limit states
enable the designer to calculate the strength of the structure.
Serviceability limit states model the behaviour of the structure at
working loads. In addition, there may be other limit states which may
adversely affect the performance of the structure, e.g. durability and
fire resistance, and which must therefore also be considered in design.

Chapter 1 7
 Fig.1.3 Typical modes of failure for beams and columns

It is a matter of experience to be able to judge which limit states

should be considered in the design of particular structures.
Nevertheless, once this has been done, it is normal practice to design
on the most critical limit state and then check for the remaining limit
states. For example, for reinforced concrete beam the ultimate states
of bending and shear are used to size the beam. The design is then
checked for the remaining limit states, e.g. deflection and cracking.
On the other hand, the serviceability limit state of deflection is
normally critical in the design of concrete slabs. Again, once the

Chapter 1 8
designer has determined a suitable depth of the slab, he/she must
then make sure that the design satisfies the limit states of bending,
shear and cracking.

In assessing the effect of a particular limit state on the

structure, the designer will need to assume certain values for the
loading on the structure and the strength of the materials composing
the structure. This requires an understanding of the concepts of
characteristic and design values which are discussed below.

Characteristic and Design Values

As stated at the outset, when checking whether a particular member
is safe, the designer cannot be certain about either the strength of the
material composing the member or, indeed, the load which the
member must carry. The material strength may be less than intended
(a) because of its variable composition, and (b) because of the
variability of manufacturing conditions during construction, and other
effects such as corrosion. Similarly the load in the member may be
greater than anticipated (i) because of the variability of the occupancy
or environmental loading, and (ii) because of unforeseen
circumstances which may lead to an increase in the general level of
loading, errors in the analysis, errors during construction, etc.

In each case, item (i) is allowed for by using a characteristic

value. The characteristic strength is the value below which the
strength lies in only a small number of cases. Similarly the
characteristic load is the value above which the load lies in only a
small percentage of cases. In the case of strength the characteristic
value is determined from test results using statistical principles, and
is normally defined as the value below which not more than 5% of the
test results fall. However, at this stage there are insufficient data
available to apply statistical principles to loads. Therefore the

Chapter 1 9
characteristic loads are normally taken to be the design loads from
other codes of practice.

The overall effect of items under (ii) is allowed for using a partial
safety factor: m for strength and  for load. The design strength is
obtained by dividing the characteristic strength by the partial safety
factor for strength:

characteristic strength
Design strength = … … (1.1)
m

The design load is obtained by multiplying the characteristic

load by the partial safety factor for the load:

Design load = characteristic load x f … …

(1.2)

The value of m will depend upon the properties of the actual

construction material being used. Values for f depend on many other
factors.

In general, once a preliminary assessment of the design loads

has been made it is then possible to calculate the maximum bending
moments, shear forces and deflections in the structure. The
construction material must be capable of withstanding these forces
otherwise failure of the structure may occur, i.e.

Design strength  design load … … (1.3)

Simplified procedures for calculating the moment, shear and

axial load capacities of structural elements together with acceptable
deflection limits are described in the appropriate codes of practice.
These allow the designer to rapidly assess the suitability of the
proposed design.

Life of a Structure
Life of a structure is, thus, defined by two parameters:

Chapter 1 10
  Design life
 Service life
The service life is specified to meet user’s requirements as
stated in the client’s brief for a project or in a performance
specification, while the design life is the period intended by the
designer based on the client’s brief. The design life can not be less
than the required service life but it may be longer, when the designer
wishes to introduce an extra allowance for uncertainties or to increase
the probability of achieving at least the required service life.

In accordance with the British standard entitled “Guide to

durability of buildings and building elements, products and
components” which has subsequently been adopted for all practical
purposes as Eurocode 1991-1, the service life (or, working life) of the
structures is be designed as follows:

 Temporary structures : 1 – 5 years

 Replaceable structural part, e.g., gantry girders, : 25 years
bearings
 Building structures and other common : 50 years
structures
 Monumental building structures, bridges and : 100 years
other civil engineering structures

The Central Public Works Department (CPWD), Government of

India, has specified that the expected economic life of buildings under
normal occupancy and maintenance conditions to be as follows:

 Monumental buildings : 100 years

 RCC framed construction : 75 years
 Load-bearing construction : 55 years
 Semi-permanent structures : 30 years
 Purely temporary structures : 5 years

It should be borne in mind that the life of structure as

mentioned above is indicative and it depends on several factors like

Chapter 1 11
location, utilisation, specifications, maintenance and upkeep. It is
also important to note that the working or service life is based on the
concept that normal maintenance is carried out at the planned times.

Building Maintenance
This work is undertaken to keep, restore or improve every facility i.e.,
every part of a building, its utilities, and services that, encompass
even gardening and landscaping operations. The main objectives of
maintenance are the following:

(i) To preserve machinery, building and services in good operating

conditions and fully utilizable.

(ii) To restore the original standards, wherever there is

deterioration.

(iii) To improve the facilities depending upon the developments that

are taking place in the building engineering.

Normal Maintenance
By normal maintenance one understands periodic inspections and
measures taken at a time when the costs of intervention are not
disproportionate to the value of the part of the works concerned,
consequential costs being taken into account. The normal
maintenance generally covers the following:

 Cleaning
 Servicing
 Repainting
 Repairing
 Replacing as needed

In the normal of Central Public Works Department the repair

works are classified under the following categories:
 Day-to-day repairs
Chapter 1 12
  Annual repairs
 Special repairs

Day-to-day repairs: The works which are attended to on day-to-day

basis include cleaning of drainage systems, manholes, restoration of
water supply, electrical failures, lawn mowing, hedge cutting, etc.
These activities are more geared towards restoring the services that
are routinely interrupted.

Annual repairs: Works of periodic nature like white washing,

painting, distempering, etc. are called annual repairs. The periodicity
of such activities is generally pre-determined. In addition, patch
repair to plaster minor repairs to various items, replacement of glass
panes, re-wiring in parts, replacement of electrical items such as
switches, sockets, etc., gardening requirements, which are not
emergent, are all clubbed together and attended to on an annualized
basis.

What is of great importance in annual repairs is the annual

survey of building that brings out the defects of structural nature.
Such defects are investigated at the level of executive engineers before
repairs are undertaken.

Special repairs: The following types of jobs are undertaken as special

repairs:

(i) White washing, colour washing, distempering, etc. after

completely scrapping the existing finish and preparing the
surface afresh.

(ii) Painting after removing the existing old paint from various
members.

(iii) Provision of waterproofing, treatment to the roof.

Chapter 1 13
(iv) Repairs of internal roads and parements.

(v) Repair/replacement of flooring, skirting, plaster, etc.

(vi) Replacements of doors, window frames, shutters, etc.

(vii) Replacement of water supply and sanitary installation like water

tanks, wash basins, kitchen sinks, pipes, etc.

(viii) Regrassing of lawns and replanting of hedges.

(ix) Electrical special repairs covering wholesale replacement of the

wiring and the electrical installations.

It should be borne in mind that all the three categories of repair,

i.e., day-to-day, annual and special, are interrelated. Any neglect in
routine maintenance and preventive measures lead to more extensive
periodical maintenance and ultimately to major repair or restoration
which could have been avoided or postponed.

The special repairs to buildings are generally categorized as

follows:

(i) Concrete work.

(ii) Masonry work including plaster, flooring and brickwork.

(iii) Wood work.

(iv) Steel work.

(v) Sanitary and water supply.

(vi) Waterproofing treatments.

(vii) Electrical wiring and fittings.

A Holistic Model of Deterioration of Concrete: From a comprehensive

review of the last several decades of history of concrete durability by
an internationally reputed academician Professor P.K. Mehta of the
University of Berkeley, California, USA, it was concluded that in order

Chapter 1 14
of increasing importance, the major causes responsible for
degradation of concrete structures are

 sulphate attack
 alkali-silica reaction
 frost action and
 corrosion of reinforcing steel.
From a study of the mechanisms underlying each of these causes of
concrete deterioration it is observed that in every case water is
instrumental in causing the expansion and cracking of concrete.
Water also happens to be the vehicle by which aggressive ions are
transported into the interior of concrete. Under relatively severe
service conditions encountered in field, the concrete is likely to loose
its water-tightness as a result of development of interconnected
networks of microcracks and crack. A comprehensive model of
deterioration of concrete developed by Professor Mehta is presented in
Fig.1.4.
Concrete contains
disconnected voids
and microcracks

Growth in microcracking
Humidity and temperature gradients
Repeated loads and overloads
Chemical attacks, leaching of cement paste and
freeze-thaw cycles

Highly permeable Sea water containing

concrete O2, CO2 and Cl¯

Initiation and
Crack growth propagation of
corrosion of
embedded steel

Fig.1.4 Mehta’s Cracking-Corrosion-Cracking Cycle in RCC

Chapter 1 15
 Depth of corrosion

Penetration of
water, ions and Acceptable depth
gases toward the
reinforcement

CO2, Cl T, RH
Time

Initiation Propagation

Lifetime or time before repair

(a) Tuutti’s 2-Stage process

End of
service life

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 2

Damage

No less in Gradual loss of

water-tightness water-tightness

Growth of Damage
No damage microcracking propagation

Service life, years

(b) Mehta’s 3-Stage process

Fig.1.5 Concrete Damage Process

Concrete Damage Propagation: The concrete damage process was first
depicted schematically by a Swedish Scientist K. Tuutti as given in
Fig.1.5(a). If the time before repair in accordance with the design life

Chapter 1 16
is “t”, and if the time period taken for initiation of the damage process
and its propagation are designated as “ti”, and “tp” respectively, then
t = ti + tp
The relative lengths of ti and tp depend on exposure conditions,
cover thickness and concrete quality. The end of t i is taken as the
point when the mean carbonation depth or the threshold limit of
chlorides reaches the innermost limit of the design characteristic
minimum cores.
Later on, Professor Mehta propounded a three-stage process
[Fig.1.5(b)], according to which there exists a stage of “no damage”
before the “initiation” stage. The “no damage” stage refers to absence
of growth of microcracks,  external or internal. In the second stage
the growth of microcracks is essentially internal, as microcracks
provide the bridges that interlink microcracks and voids. This leads
to a breach of watertightness which is a prerequisite for the
subsequent damage.

End of Design Life: The end of design life of a structure is defined by

a certain level of damage caused by the deterioration processes
described earlier. The damage can be less obvious or totally obvious,
depending on the degree of conservation adopted. The options
available for acceptability are as follows:
— No corrosion or visible damage
— First cracking visible with magnification
— Cracking visible to naked eye (surface crack of 0.1-0.2 mm
dimension)
— First spalling
— Excessive deflection
— Collapse under the design load
It may be relevant to mention have that visible cracking is where
a client become concerned about the residual life of the structure.

Chapter 1 17
CONCLUDING REMARKS AND SUMMARY
Maintenance functions of capital assets in our country are
proverbially low-keyed. This is more pronounced for buildings. Lack
of resources is often advanced as a plea for poor quality maintenance
of assets. This may be partially true but the perpetuation of a
knowledge gap of what precisely has to be looked for and attended to
cannot be denied. This knowledge gap requires to be contained and
eliminated, if possible.
With this in view this chapter has examined three philosophies
of structural designs: permissible stress, load factor and limit state.
The emphasis has been given on the limit state design as it forms the
basis of the design methods given in various codes of practice for
concrete.
The aim of limit state design is to ensure that a structure will
not become unfit for its intended use, that is, it will not reach a limit
state during its design life. Two categories of limit states are
examined in design: ultimate and serviceability. The former is
concerned with overall stability and determining the collapse load of
the structure; the latter examines its behaviour under working loads.
Structural design principally involves ensuring that the loads acting
on the structure do not exceed its strength and the first step in the
design process then is to estimate the loads acting on the structure.
The chapter has also dealt with the design working life or
service life of structures. The recommendations of the British and
Indian organizations have been touched upon. Since the concept of
building maintenance is intertwined with the concept of service life,
the significance of normal maintenance and the classification of
maintenance into day-to-day, annual and special categories, as
practised by CPWD has been presented.
Finally, a holistic approach towards understanding the
deterioration of concrete and the damage propagation models
proposed by Tuutti and Menta have been explained.

Chapter 1 18
Questions:

1. Explain the difference between conceptual design and detailed design.

2. What is a code of practice and what is its purpose in structural design?
3. What are the primary variables in structural design? Discuss the difficulties
associated with estimating representative values of these variables and how
such difficulties can be overcome.
4. The characteristic strengths and design strengths are related via the partial
safety factor for materials. The partial safety factor for concrete is higher than
for steel reinforcement. Discuss why this should be so.
5. Describe in general terms the ways in which a beam and column could
become unfit for use.
6. Explain the difference between the service life and design life of a structure.
7. What are the norms for designing the service life.
8. Explain the concept of normal maintenance of buildings.
9. What are the major causes responsible for concrete degradation and how does
the cracking-corrosion-cracking cycle work?
10. Explain the concrete damage propagation process in the context of service life
of a structure.

Source References:
1. Chanakya Arya, Design of Structural Elements, E+FN Spon, London.

2. K.H. Khayat & P.C. Aitcin (Ed), P.K. Mehta, Symposium on Durability of Concrete,
Canmet/ACI International Conference, 1994.

3. K. Tuutti, Corrosion of Steel in Concrete, Swedish Cement and Concrete Research

Institute, Stockholm, 1982.

4. P.K. Mehta & B.C. Gerwick, Cracking-corrosion interaction in concrete exposed to

marine environment, Concrete International, Vol.4, no.10, 1982.

  

Chapter 1 19