IJSRD - International Journal for Scientific Research & Development| Vol.
3, Issue 08, 2015 | ISSN (online): 2321-0613
Comparison of Reinforced Concrete and Pre-Stressed Concrete Flat
Slabs in Tall Buildings
Ruchi R Kadamb1 M.Manjunath2
1
P.G. Student 2Associate Professor
1,2
Department of Civil Engineering
1,2
KLE Dr. M.S.Sheshgiri College of Engineering and Technology, Belgaum 590008, India
Abstract—Flat slab are usually preferred floor system for
tall buildings as they result in reduction in floor heights. The
flat slabs without drop panel and column head are called as
flat plates. The design of tall buildings is usually governed
by the lateral loads imposed on the structure. The main
disadvantage of flat slabs and flat plates is their lack of
resistance to lateral loads, such as those due to wind forces
and earthquakes. In the present study tall building with
reinforced concrete flat slab floor system is compared with
pre-stressed concrete flat slab floor system under lateral
forces. A 30 storied tall building with a flat plate floor of
size of 30m x 24m and having a panel size 6m x 6m is
studied for wind forces. These slabs are design as reinforced
concrete as well as pre-stressed (post tensioning) concrete
flat slabs as per Indian standard codes and analysed in
software SAP2000. The analysis and design results of
reinforced concrete and pre-stressed concrete flat plates are
compared to evaluate the performance of the tall building in
resisting the lateral wind forces.
Key words: Reinforced Concrete, Pre-Stressed Concrete Flat
Slabs
I. INTRODUCTION
Tall buildings are developing in a rapid speed nowadays.
Since last 20 years they have gained a lot of importance in
commercial as well as residential buildings. For the business
activist it is a mark of prestige to own a high rise building at
city centres. A building is said to be tall building when it has
stories more than 10.
The reason behind the rapid construction of tall
buildings is mainly due to economic growth, human
curiosity in building tall structures, increase in population at
a fast rate, land scarcity in urban areas. Land rates have
boomed in last few years to a very high cost. Hence tall
buildings make it economical for the people. There is a lot
of improvement in technology and advancement in studies;
this is another reason for the increase in tall building.
As of today there are lot of software which makes
it easier for a structural engineer to analyse a building and
get the values to design building in a short period of time.
The conventional manual analysis consumes a lot
of time to design a tall building, hence it is a difficult task to
analyse the building with conventional methods. Hong Kong
is the world’s largest high rise building centre. They have a
lot of tall buildings with the most promising designs for a
structural engineer.
Tall buildings have to resists large amount of loads
such as gravity loads, wind loads and earthquake loads.
Earthquake loads and wind loads are most dominant in such
multi storied buildings. Therefore structures are built to
resist these loads by providing several load resisting
systems. Few methods are by providing bracing to the
buildings, by constructing a shear wall or coupled shear
wall. For earthquake loads damper are used to resists the
vibrations in the building during an earthquake attack.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
In one of the previous work, the effects of wind loads on
tall buildings are studied. For this investigation 3D models
are prepared in ETABS software. By changing the aspect
ratio up to 2 of the buildings these studies are carried out.
Design is as per IS-875 part III. Even the height of buildings
are varied, buildings from 3 to 20 stories are used. For this
study parameters such as bending moments and axial forces
are included. A building of width 20 meters with 4 bays is
considered for the design purposes. Graphs are drawn by to
give out the conclusion to these investigations. Graphs of
moment v/s aspect ratio, moment v/s height, and axial load
v/s aspect ratio are drawn. From these graphs it is proved
that as the aspect ratio reduces wind loads also reduces.
It is concluded that aspect ratio increases as
moments in the column decreases for wind load cases, but
the moments remain same for all aspect ratio for gravity
loads. As the height increases moments in the column
increases for low rise building and remain constant for
medium height buildings. Axial forces in the column are
almost same for all load cases when the height of building is
less than 15mts. Column moments are considered critical
while designing for the tall buildings.
III. PROBLEM DEFINITION AND METHODOLOGY
Basically in this investigation a flat slab performance on a
tall building is studied. Drop panel and column capital is
absent in these slabs. Building of 30 stories is used in this
project and parametric study is carried out to study the
details of wind loads acting on the buildings along with
gravity loads. For the analysis first design is manually done
using Indian standard codes. IS 875 part III, IS 456 2000, IS
875 part I and II and IS 1343.
These design values calculated are applied on the
high rise building to create 3D models in SAP 2000 and get
the analysis results. The results obtained from this software
are displacements, axial loads, moment, shear values joint
reactions, joint displacements, element forces and moments
for both shell and frame. These values are used in this
project to compare the flat slab performance. For both the
cases design is manually done and model is created in the
software.
The analysis model for reinforced concrete tall
building and pre-stressed concrete tall building are as
follows:
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 Comparison of Reinforced Concrete and Pre-Stressed Concrete Flat Slabs in Tall Buildings
Fig. 1: SAP 2000 3D model of Reinforced concrete
Fig. 2: SAP 2000 3D model of pre-stressed concrete
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. Axial Loads Variations for Reinforced Concrete and
Pre-Stressed Concrete Flat Slab Buildings of Columns on
Lee Ward Side and Wind-Ward for the Combination
1.2(DL+LL+WL)
Fig. 3: Variation of axial loads on lee-ward side of building
for combination 1.2(DL+LL+WL)
Fig. 4: Variation of axial loads on wind-ward side of
building for combination 1.2(DL+LL+WL)
(IJSRD/Vol. 3/Issue 08/2015/156)
B. Axial Loads Of Building For Reinforced Concrete And
Pre-Stressed Concrete Flat Slab Buildings Of Columns With
No Wind Load Acting On The Building That Is For The
Combination 1.5(DL+LL)
Fig. 5: Variation of axial load on external columns with no
wind loads acting on the building
C. Displacement variation of reinforced concrete and pre-
stressed concrete flat slab buildings for load combination
1.2(DL+LL+WL).
Fig. 6: Change in displacement of building with respect to
story height
D. Column Moments of Reinforced Concrete and Pre-
Stressed Concrete Flat Slab Buildings for Load
Combination 1.2(DL+LL+WL)
Fig. 7: Bending moment variation on wind-ward side of
building for load combination 1.2(DL+LL+WL)
Fig. 8: Bending moment variation on lee-ward side of
building for load combination 1.2(DL+LL+WL)
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 Comparison of Reinforced Concrete and Pre-Stressed Concrete Flat Slabs in Tall Buildings
(IJSRD/Vol. 3/Issue 08/2015/156)

V. CONCLUSION International Journal of Engineering and Technology,

From the analysis made on reinforced concrete and pre- Vol. 5, No. 1, February 2013.
stressed concrete flat slab buildings following conclusion [12] Madhavi Prajapati and Vivek Tiwari (2014),
can be arrived. The axial loads and moment in columns of “Comparative Study of Flat Slab with Old Traditional
pre-stressed concrete flat-slab building are 25% lesser than Two way slabs” International Journal of Latest Trends
reinforced concrete flat-slab building for both lee-ward side in Engineering and Technology, Vol. 4 Issue 2 July
columns as well as wind-ward side columns. The 2014.
displacement of pre-stressed concrete flat-slab building is [13] Dan Vasile Bompa, Traina "Failure analysis of
lower as compared to reinforced concrete flat-slab building. symmetric flat slab column connection with shear
The reduction in displacement is about 30%. This indicates reinforcement," Concrete engineering journal, pp. 1-4,
that the pre-stressed concrete flat-slab system enhances the 10 June 2011.
stiffness of the tall structure. All the above points prove that [14] Alkarani, R. Ravindra "Evaluation of punching shear
pre-stressed concrete flat-slab systems are more suitable in flat slabs," International journal of reasearch in
than reinforced concrete flat-slab systems for tall buildings. engineering and technology, p. 102, November 2013.
[15] M. Thayapraba, "Cost effectiveness of post tensioned
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