BANGLADESH UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY

“BUET”

Course No: CE-6114

Course Title: Analysis & Design of Tall Building.

Assignment No.: 01
Assignment Name:
What are the design criteria that you will consider for high
rise buildings?

Submitted by:
Name: Harun-Ar-Rashid
St. No.: 1014042329
Dept.: Structural Engineering
(M.Sc Engineering Program)
BANGLADESH UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY
“BUET”
Email: [email protected] Mobile Number: +8801722756033

Design Criteria for High Rise Building

Introduction
The design of tall buildings essentially involves a conceptual design, approximate analysis,
preliminary design and optimization, to safely carry gravity and lateral loads. The design
criteria are strength, serviceability, stability and human comfort. The strength is satisfied by
limit stresses, while serviceability is satisfied by drift limits in the range of to .
Stability is satisfied by sufficient factor of safety against buckling and P-Delta effects.

The structural engineer is to arrive at suitable structural schemes, to satisfy these criteria, and
assess their structural weights in weight/unit area in square feet or square meters. This
initiates structural drawings and specifications to enable construction engineers to proceed
with fabrication and erection operations. The weight of steel in or in is often a
parameter the architects and construction managers are looking for from the structural
engineer. This includes the weights of floor system, girders, braces and columns. The
premium for wind is optimized to yield drifts in the range of , where H is the height of the
tall building. Herein, some aspects of the design of gravity system, and the lateral system, are
explored.

Sub systems and Components

The sub systems or components of the tall building structural systems are essentially the
following.
 Floor systems
 Vertical Load Resisting Systems
 Lateral Load Resisting Systems
 Connections
 Energy Dissipation Systems and Damping

The most commonly used structural systems have been classified by Khan, Iyengar and
Colaco (1972, 74). These are broadly defined as follows.
 Moment Resisting Frames
 Shear Wall-Frame Systems
 Shear Truss-Outrigger Braced Systems
 Framed-Tubes
 Tube-in-Tube Systems with interior columns
 Bundled Tubes
 Truss Tubes without interior columns
 Modular Tubes

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STUDENT ID-1014042329
BANGLADESH UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY
“BUET”
Email: [email protected] Mobile Number: +8801722756033

Floor Systems
The floor system carries the gravity loads during and after construction. It should be able to
accommodate the heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems, and have built in fire
resistance properties. These could be classified as two-way systems, one-way systems and
beam and slab systems. Two -way systems include flat plates supported by columns, flat
slabs supported by columns with capitals or drop panels. Large shears and moments will be
carried by the latter. Slabs of constant thickness are also used. Slabs with waffles are also
used. Two-way joists are also used. One-way systems include following -slabs of constant
thickness, with spans of 3m to 8m. Closely spaced joists could also be used. Beam and slab
systems use beams spaced of 1m to 4m.Lattice floor joists and girders are useful to have
ductwork inside of them. Floors of small joists are also used, in addition to integral floor
slabs which house piping.
The IBM Mutual Benefit Life building, in Kansas City, MO illustrates the one way and two
way joist systems. It also has shear walls for lateral resistance.

Concrete Floor Systems

In concrete floor systems, slabs of uniform thickness are often used with spans of 3m to 8m.
One way or two way systems are used. Concrete joists or ribs are used in one way or two
way systems, called pan joists are also used. One Shell Plaza, in Houston, TX uses this.
Beam and slab system is used with beams spaced at 3m to 8m. Beam depths of to be
used.

Steel Floor Systems

In steel floor systems, we use reinforced concrete slabs on steel beams. Thickness of slabs is
in the range of to of the span. Pre-cast concrete slabs are also used with some shear
connectors, grouted. Spans vary from 1.2m to 9m. Concrete slabs on metal decking are often
used, with shear connection. For steel beams, wide flange shapes are used. Welded plate
girders, latticed girders, and vierendeel girders are also used, which house ducts. Castellated
beams and stub girders, developed by Colaco (1970), are also used, which allow mechanical
ductwork to be placed between short stubs, welded on top of these girders. The stub lengths
are 1.5m to 2m long. Stub girders are of composite construction. Boatmen’s Tower, St.
Louis, and Mercantile Bank building, Kansas City, illustrate composite construction. These
were designed by GCE Consultants, as a partner to CBM.

Vertical Framing Systems

Vertical framing elements are columns, bearing walls, hangers, transfer girders, and
suspended systems such as cable suspended floors. Structural steel, reinforced concrete and
composite columns are used. Bearing walls carry loads in compression, and sometimes, like
staggered trusses between floors. Transfer girders are used to bridge large openings at lower
levels of a tall building. Suspended systems use massive structure at top, with many floors
suspended below by using cables. Lower floors are column free. Federal Reserve Bank in
Minneapolis, MN is an example. Mercantile Bank building, Kansas City, has space truss as a
transfer truss to carry loads to 5 columns at the first level.

HARUN-AR-RASHID Page 3
STUDENT ID-1014042329
BANGLADESH UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY
“BUET”
Email: [email protected] Mobile Number: +8801722756033

Lateral Resisting Frame Systems

The essential role of the lateral resisting frame systems is to carry the wind and earthquake
loads, as well as to resist P-Delta effects due to secondary moments in the columns. These
systems could be classified into the following.
 Moment Resisting Frames
 Braced Frames
 Shear Walls

Moment Resisting Frames

Moment resisting frames are column and girder plane frames with fixed or semi-rigid
connections. The strength and stiffness are proportional to the story height and column
spacing. Concrete moment resisting frames, steel moment resisting frames and composite
moment resisting frames are used. Composite beams and composite columns may be used.
Concrete encased steel columns may be used. Steel beams encased in concrete and steel
beams connected to slabs by shear connection are also used. Moment resisting frames could
also be built with columns connected to flat plates, in concrete. Slab and walls could also be
designed as moment resisting frames. Steel moment frames could be fabricated using 3 story
panels of beam-column subassemblies. These are kept to 4m wide panels, with points of
inflection at midpoints of columns and girders, field bolted. The transporting of panels is
easy, when 4m width is used.

Braced Frames
Braced frames have single diagonal, x-braces and k-braces. Lattice and knee bracing are also
used. Concrete braced frames are often not used, since shear walls are superior for
construction and lateral resistance. Lattice bracing is used in pre-cast panel construction.
Steel braced frames are used in interior cores, so connections could be easily made with wall
panels. Composite braced frames may have steel bracings in concrete frames or concrete
bracings in steel frames. Concrete encasement of columns and composite floor beams has
also been used.

Shear Walls
Shear walls are plane elements made up of reinforced concrete thin walls having length and
thickness providing lateral stiffness. The shear and overall flexural deformations are design
constraints, along with the stress levels, axial and bending. Concrete shear walls may be cast
in place or pre-cast. Pre-cast panel walls are also used within a concrete or steel frame to
provide lateral resistance. The ductile shear walls used in earthquake resistant design have to
be detailed carefully. Coupling beams should have diagonal reinforcement to develop shear
resistance. Steel shear walls are also used sometimes, by connecting them to framework by
welding or high strength bolts. Masonry shear walls are also used, with solid walls and
grouted cavity masonry to carry shears and moments, with reinforcements encased.

HARUN-AR-RASHID Page 4
STUDENT ID-1014042329
BANGLADESH UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY
“BUET”
Email: [email protected] Mobile Number: +8801722756033

Framed Tube Systems

Framed tubes are 3-dimensional space frameworks made by connecting intersecting plane
frames at the corners by stiff corner columns. Framed tubes behave like giant flange frames
and perpendicular web frames carrying axial loads and shear. The flange frames are normal
to wind, while web frames are parallel to the wind. The axial forces in the columns in the
flange frames are obtained by beam theory. However, due to flexibility of spandrel girders,
and columns, there is a shear lag effect, in the box beam cantilever.

With a hyperbolic type stress distribution in web frames. In the flange frames the column
axial stresses are magnified also in a parabolic type stress distribution. Thus the corner
columns may have almost 4 times the axial stress as in an ideal cantilever tube. Framed tubes
have columns fairly closely spaced with variations from 1m to 3m. This allows stiff spandrel
beams to be designed to enable lateral resistance. Shear lag effects are thus reduced. The
overturning resistance of the overall tube is increased. Braced tubes are three dimensional
diagonal braced or trussed system, acting like a giant space frame. The 100 – story John
Hancock Center, designed by Fazlur Rahman Khan, Hal S.Iyengar, and Joseph P.Colaco, in
Chicago, is the best example of a diagonal trussed tube. Its natural frequency is 0.125 hertz,
giving a stiff system at about 30 steel for its structural weight. Shear wall tubes are
made up of four shear walls connected at corners. Tube in tube system is designed by using
interior core shear-walls combined with exterior framed tube. One Shell Plaza in Houston is
one such example. Bundled tubes are made with multiple tubes sharing common interior side
frames. Sears Tower in Chicago is an example of nine framed tubes to make a bundled tube,
with belt and outrigger trusses at different levels. This is the tallest in the US, at 110 stories,
and was designed by the same engineers as John Hancock. This has about 33psf steel and a
frequency of 0.125 hertz. One Shell Plaza, Houston and Boatmen’s Tower, St. Louis,
illustrate framed tubes designed by CBM and GCE Consultants. The structure weight is
about 13 to 14 for a 32 story building, increasing to about 30 for a 90 story
building. Tall Building Monographs (1978) have typical values, in the Systems and
Concepts, Volume I.

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STUDENT ID-1014042329