KNS 3643

REINFORCED CONCRETE DESIGN –

STAIRCASE DESIGN
Lectures By: Dr Delsye Teo
At the end of this course, you should be able to analyse and design
reinforced concrete staircases; and produce and show the design sketches
for detail drawings.
A stairway is an essential part of every building since they lead from one
floor to another and connect different levels.
It consists of a flight of steps, usually with one or more intermediate landings
provided between the floor levels.

Figure 1: Basic terminology of

stairs
The types normally used are:
Straight stairs spanning longitudinally – spans between supports at the top and
bottom of the flight. The supports may be beams, walls or landing slabs provided
parallel to the riser causing the slab to bend longitudinally between supports.
Straight stairs spanning horizontally – spans between walls, a wall and stringer
(an edge beam), or between two stingers. The stairs may also be cantilevered
from a wall. This stairs slab is designed as a series of beam consisting of one step.
Free-standing stairs – consists of two flights and a landing. Current practice of
analysing free-standing stairs is to use approximate analytical methods due to the
absence of specific code provisions.
Helical stairs – gives space, grandeur and a sweeping sculptural form
Spiral stairs – built with treads fanning out around a central column
Slabless stairs
Figure 2: Types of stairs
Loads
When considering permanent loads for the flight of stairs, care should be taken to ensure that a
sufficient allowance is made to cater for the weight of the steps and finishes as well as the
increased loading on plan, occasioned by the inclination of the waist.
Bending moments and shear forces
Stair slabs and landings should be designed to support the most unfavorable arrangements of
the design loads.
Effective spans
The effective span of stairs between beams or walls is the distance between the center-lines of
the supporting beams or walls. The effective span of stairs between landing slabs is the distance
between center-lines of the supporting landing slabs, or the distance between the edges of the
supporting slabs plus 1.8 m, whichever is smaller.
Detailing
Care should be taken while detailing of corners such that the bar in tension may not break
through at the kink due to the tendency to straighten up under tension as indicated in the
following figure.
Figure 3: Detailing of stairs
Stair slab spanning horizontally
Figure 4 shows a stair supported on one side by a wall and on the other by a
stringer beam. Each step is usually designed as having a breadth, b and an
effective depth of d = D/2. Distribution steel in the longitudinal direction is placed
above the main reinforcement.
Figure 5 shows a cantilevered stair. The effective depth of the member is taken as
the mean effective depth of the section and the main reinforcement must be
placed in the top of the stairs and anchored into the support. A light mesh
reinforcement is placed in the bottom face to resist shrinkage cracking.
Figure 4: Stairs spanning horizontally
Figure 5: Cantilevered stairs
Stairs slabs spanning longitudinally
The stair slab may span into landings which span at right angles to the stairs as
in Figure 6 or it may span between supporting beams as in Figure 7.
The dead load is calculated along the slope length of the stairs but the live load
is based on the plan area. Loads common to two spans which intersect at right
angles and surround an open well may be assumed to be divided equally
between the spans. The effective span (l) is measured horizontally between the
centers of the supports and the thickness of the waist (h) is taken as the slab
thickness.
Stairs slabs which are continuous and constructed monolithically with their
supporting slabs or beams can be designed for a bending moment of say Fl/10,
where F is the total ultimate load.
But in some instances, the stairs are precast or constructed after the main
structure, pockets with dowels being left in the supporting beams to receive the
stairs, and with no appreciable end restraint the design moment should be Fl/8.
Figure 6: Stairs spanning
into landings
Figure 7: Stairs supported by beams
The stairs shown in the figure below spans longitudinally and set into pockets in the
two supporting beams. The effective span is 3.0 m and the rise of the stairs is 1.5 m
with 260 mm treads and 150 mm risers. The variable load is 3.0kN/m2 and the
characteristic material strengths are fck = 30 N/mm2 and fyk = 500 N/mm2.