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Ultra Light-Weight Buildings (Re-designing Cobiax Construction , less balls

and more reduction in Concrete)

Research · May 2015

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2999.0567

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City University London

ULTRA LIGHT-

WEIGTH BUILDING

SUPERVISOR : DR. B. MCKINLEY

MEHRAN VAFAEI SHALMANI

2012-13

Page 0
Acknowledgement:

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.Brett McKinley, for his
excellent guidance, patient and caring about my project. I am thankful for his support and
helping me to be in the right direction during the project.

I would like to thank staffs who work in City University Library and ICE Library for their
guidance and advices.

Page 1
Abstract

The project is about ultra-lightweight buildings. It reviews all the possible construction

methods. In the next step, the lightest method in each type of construction is mentioned.

The advantages and disadvantages of different methods are shown and all the methods have

been compared to each other in order to choose the lightest, easiest and cheapest method.

The cobiax method is the newest and the lightest method in construction industry. It has been

described in full details and the few examples of the cobiax method which has been done

recently, will be demonstrates in the report.

After the explanation and analysis of the different types of construction methods the

proposed design will be illustrated.

Finally, the proposed design will be analysed with FE (finite element Lusas 14.0) to test the

design of how it will be behave under normal and ideal situation (e.g. in this report the forces

acts on the slab is designed for office building)

The other calculation also has been done to show the difference between the amount of

usage of concrete in the slab and the other differences such as deigned moment, total load

and shear force on the slab.

Page 2
Contents

Acknowledgement: ....................................................................................................................... 1
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 5
1. Types of building’s Frame ......................................................................................................... 6
1.1Steel Frames ......................................................................................................................... 6
Advantages of Steel Frame Construction:............................................................................. 7
Disadvantages of Steel Frame Construction: ........................................................................ 8
1.2 Concrete Frames ................................................................................................................. 8
2. Methods of reducing weight of concrete ................................................................................. 9
2.1 Fibre Reinforce Concrete .................................................................................................... 9
2.2 Types of fibre reinforced concrete:................................................................................... 10
2.1.1 Steel Fibres: .................................................................................................................... 10
2.1.2 Glass Fibres .................................................................................................................... 10
2.1.3 Propylene Fibres ............................................................................................................ 11
2.1.4 Synthetic Fibres .............................................................................................................. 11
2.3General advantages of FRC ................................................................................................ 12
Glass fibre specification ...................................................................................................... 13
Steel fibre specification ....................................................................................................... 13
2.4 Ceramic Microsphere ........................................................................................................ 13
2.5Air Entraining Agents ......................................................................................................... 13
2.6 Fly ash................................................................................................................................ 13
3. Cobiax ...................................................................................................................................... 14
3.1 Cobiax Method: ................................................................................................................. 14
3.2 Types of Cobiax: ................................................................................................................ 15
3.2.1 Reinforced concrete light pre-slab (with balls Cobiax): ............................................. 15
3.2.2 Reinforced concrete light pre-slab (with plastic shells): ............................................ 16
3.3 Engineering aspects of Cobiax .......................................................................................... 16
Finite element analysis of cobiax: ....................................................................................... 18
Advantages: ......................................................................................................................... 18
3.4 Projects with cobiax method: ........................................................................................... 20
ALTRA SEDE, MILAN, Italy ................................................................................................... 20

Page 3
 National stadium, Warsaw, Poland: .................................................................................... 21
Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany: ............................................................................... 21
4. Design: .................................................................................................................................... 23
Advantages: ......................................................................................................................... 24
Final decision about the fibre reinforced concrete: ............................................................... 25
5. Safety factors: ......................................................................................................................... 26
5.1 Pre-stress concrete ........................................................................................................... 26
What is prestressed method? ............................................................................................. 26
Advantage of prestressed method: .................................................................................... 27
Process: ............................................................................................................................... 28
5.2 Isolation base system: ....................................................................................................... 28
5.3 Fire Resistance: ................................................................................................................. 31
6. Analysis.................................................................................................................................... 32
6.1Calculation results: ............................................................................................................. 32
Table 1, Summary of numerical calculation ........................................................................ 32
Discussion:........................................................................................................................... 32
6.2Finite element results: ....................................................................................................... 33
400x400x400 (5 balls) ......................................................................................................... 34
400x400x400 (7balls) .......................................................................................................... 36
400x400x400 (10 balls) ....................................................................................................... 38
400x350x400 (5 balls) ......................................................................................................... 40
400x350x400 (7 balls) ......................................................................................................... 42
400x350x400 (10 balls) ....................................................................................................... 44
380x350x400 (11 balls) ....................................................................................................... 46
360x350x400 (12balls) ........................................................................................................ 48
Table2. Summary of the analysis of slabs ........................................................................... 50
Discussion:........................................................................................................................... 51
Conclusion: .......................................................................................................................... 51
References: ................................................................................................................................. 53
List of tables: ............................................................................................................................... 57

Page 4
Introduction

The most important fact is, why engineers are looking to reduce the weight of the structure

and what are the aspects they are looking for by decreasing the weight of the structure.

Nowadays, population is growing and so the requirement of housing and offices are

increasing. These facts lead the construction companies to build more high-rise buildings.

Hence, the demand for the material needed to construct buildings is increasing too.

In these days, engineers aim to make buildings which are lighter. In the same way, stability,

strength and stiffness of the structure do not reduce or reduce proportional to the amount of

reduction. By reducing the weight of structure, time consumption will decrease and energy

spend to construct a new construction will be decrease directly and indirectly. Extra works will

be eliminated by making structures lighter.

Page 5
1. Types of building’s Frame

1.1Steel Frames

One of the common methods of construction is to use steel. Engineers made the steel frames

which contain the steel hollow section (most frames) columns and beams. There are two types

of connections between columns and beams. One is bolted (which use for taller building or

connection between beams and columns) and the other is welded (which use for small height

buildings). In this method, slabs made from concrete with minimum size of bars can be used

(Beams required). The lightest way in steel frame construction is to utilize the slim floor

system for slabs.

The slim floor system is the new method of construction which has become more popular

these days, especially in Europe (shown in figure 3). It is the combination of steel slab and

concrete and matrix of steel bars which has led to the reduction in thickness of slabs in

buildings. Normally, sizes of slabs are between 280 to 320 mm [16] [24].In this method, form

working on each floor is not required, this is because steel decks are the permanent form work

of the concrete. As a result, each floor has its work and each of the processes of each floor

does not depend to the others. This has led in a reduction of cost and it has also save time as

the casting concrete can be made simultaneously in a period of time in altered floors. [1]

Page 6
 Figure1, 2 Example of steel frame

Figure3. Example of the slim floor construction method

Advantages of Steel Frame Construction:

Steel frames are generally lighter and stronger than concrete and many tallest and widest

buildings in the world are made from steel. Another advance point which steel has is that it is

designed and prefabricated in factories then will be delivering to the site. In this method,

assembling and production is easy. In the same way, it required reasonable cost and low-

skilled labour with high quality. As a matter of design, this type of frame is quite flexible. This

Page 7
means large span distances and curves can be taken. In the same way, the safety and

durability of steel is quite good (steel does not ignite, burn or rust). [1] [13]

Disadvantages of Steel Frame Construction:

On the other hand, steel is pretty expensive compared to other materials such as concrete or

any other common material. Steel also needs fire protection layers because it is sensitive to

heat (additional cost). In general, steel frames are unstable and it takes time to level them on

the site, however it is more expectable and an accurate method. [1] [13]

1.2 Concrete Frames

Second method is concrete, instead of using steel frame which is expensive and it is more

common. Engineers use concrete and bars on both columns and slabs. In this method, the

distance between the columns could not be very large (in most cases). Sometimes, in order to

reduce the total weight of concrete in the specific area, engineers use Polystyrene between

matrices. In addition, Polystyrene is a good insulator of sound and heat. [2] [26]

Fig4. Example of using Polystyrene and concrete

Page 8
2. Methods of reducing weight of concrete

2.1 Fibre Reinforce Concrete

In this method, concrete combines with short discrete fibres. The fibres are distributed

uniformly. The sizes of fibres are usually about 3-20mm and randomly oriented. There are few

types of materials which can be used as fibres in FRC (Steel fibres, Glass fibres, Synthetic fibres

or natural fibres). In general, concrete has very high compression strength and the tensile

strength of the concrete is considerably low. In order to cover the problem, engineers are

adding matrices of bars. The concept of FRC is to combine concrete with one of the following

fibres which has been mentioned before. Another important fact is that FRC increase the

impact force enormously. In some buildings Polystyrene is been used inside the concrete to

reduce sound and heat which is transferred to each floor. Fibres are an insulator to heat and

sound.

Advantages of this type of construction are that, there is minimizing in the dead load and

damages which are occurred by erosion or cavitation. The idea behind the FRC is to reduce

weight with a small change in the strength. Reduction in weight or dead load in structure is

one of the important facts. On the other hand, the numbers of people survive from natural

disaster is going down by cutting the dead load [8].In the first few days after casting concrete,

concrete has low strength and the possibility of shrinkage in concrete is high. In contrast, by

adding polypropylene fibre which has high tensile strength, it will be strong.

Page 9
2.2 Types of fibre reinforced concrete:

1. Steel fibres [2] [17]

2. Glass fibres [2] [17]

3. Propylene fibres [2] [17]

4. Synthetic fibres [17]

5. Carbon fibres [1]

6. Acrylic fibres [17]

7. Aramid fibres [17]

2.1.1 Steel Fibres:

Steel has high tensile strength. It improves strength, freeze-thaw, abrasion and impact

resistance of the building. On the other hand, it is easy to shape the fibres. There are different

types of steel fibres for different purposes. By adding these kinds of fibres the ductility and

durability to undergo the pressures, impact forces will be gain. In addition, steel fibres help to

control the cracks by trapping them in a small area and as a result the size of the cracks will be

diminished. [2] [7] [8] [17]

2.1.2 Glass Fibres

Glass fibres are one of the good fibres to reinforce the concrete by them, instead of using the

bars which are heavy. GFRC (glass fibre reinforcement concrete) is made from soil; therefore it

is not harmful for environment. Other strong point of these fibres is that they produce natural

chemicals reaction which makes GRFC very strong material and also flexible. It is eco-friendly

because the fibre can be made from recycled glass and metal. [2] [5] [17]

Page 10
2.1.3 Propylene Fibres

Concrete is not resistant against fire or heat. These fibres can cover this weakness of concrete

very well. Propylene fibres have a reasonable price and can increase the compressive strength

and thermal resistance. Propylene, same as other fibres decreases the permeability of

concrete and curtails cracks. Propylene melts in 160therefore during firing they melt and

liquids inside the concrete will evaporate and decreases the pressure inside the concrete. By

adding propylene fibres to concrete pump ability over long distances and impact resistance (to

any force and plastic shrinkage during curing). Same as steel fibre, propylene fibre increase the

freezing thaw of the concrete. [1] [2] [8] [10] [17]

As all the advantages and disadvantages mentioned, propylene fibres have many strong point

as matter of strength and also the cost. However it reacts to fire quickly which is not suited in

many cases therefore propylene fibres is not profitable to use.

2.1.4 Synthetic Fibres

Synthetic fibres are not create by nature or depending on animal farming or agricultural crop,

but they made by humans in labs. This fact leads that these kinds of fibres become cheaper

than any other fibres which have natural sources. In the same way, the availability of these

fibres is better and also it should have easy maintenance. Synthetic fibres are durable however

it dries fast.

However, these fibres have many disadvantages which make some limitation to use them.

Synthetic fibres have low melting temperature and will cause to melt before burning. As it

mentioned before it is not natural, therefore it is also dangerous for environment. Other

Page 11
specification of this fibre is that they shrink easily and also their temperature changes easily

(depend on the temperature of area).

First of all synthetic fibres are not eco-friendly; however it is cheap and easily produced. The

real disadvantages gained by the use of synthetic overrides its advantage. As a safety matter,

the low melting temperature materials (as single or composites) could not be used in

buildings. [8] [9] [17] [18]

2.3General advantages of FRC

In general concrete can support tension; however it is not capable of withstanding all the

compressive strength. Matrices of bars (steel bars) are usually added inside the concrete to

reinforce the concrete. In certain situations where the loads are not very enormous, one

matrix of bars is enough.

In the same way, by adding the fibre inside the concrete, the tension strength of the concrete

will increase but the increasing amount of strength is not the same as the steel bars. [1] [17]

Figure5.typical stress-strain curve for fibre reinforced concrete

Page 12
Glass fibre specification

 Tensile strength 2-4 GPa

 Elastic modulus 70-80 GPa

 Brittle stress-strain characteristic (2.5-2.8% elongation at break)

 Up to 5% of concrete volume [17]

Steel fibre specification

 Fibre diameters : 0.15-2 mm

 Fibre lengths : 7-75 mm

 High tensile strength : 0.5-2 GPa

 Modulus of elasticity : 200 GPa

 Most common steel fibre type : carbon steel (cheap) [17]

2.4 Ceramic Microsphere

Microspheres are a lightweight, hollow sphere comprised largely of silica and alumina and

filled with air. They also called Cenospheres and as well as they are manufactured they may be

naturally occurring by-product of the burning process at coal-fired power plants. [1] [15] [25]

2.5Air Entraining Agents

Air entraining agents are air bubbles produced by chemical reactions using soap based

chemicals. [15]

2.6 Fly ash

Another way to reduce deadweight of the structure is using fly ash in cement and concrete.

The advantage which fly ash could bring is that concrete become thinner due to the increase in

strength of the concrete. However, the fly ashes are not accessible for many countries. [1] [27]

Page 13
3. Cobiax

3.1 Cobiax Method:

The cobiax method is the same as the concrete method but the only difference is that the

dead load decreases due to the Cobiax balls (made from recycled polyethylene and it fills by

air).

By this method, the thickness of the slabs will be minimized significantly (in most cases). The

structures usually have slim slabs and wide spans. In the same way, by reducing cost and

materials, engineers can reach their goals much easier compared to the previous methods.

The amount of footprint (carbon dioxide emission) is going to drop which means that this

method is more eco-friendly than the other methods as well. The Length of the spans could

reach up to 20m and the soffit is flat which can make a huge range of choices by putting wires

and pipes.

According to the Cobiax and Hanson Companies, this method brings numerous advantages.

Total height of building will decrease slightly which is due to the slimmer slabs. For taller

buildings, it requires less deep excavation because the total weight of building decreases

about one-third less than the methods which concrete and reinforcements are used. The

amounts of material used will decrease considerably which will have an effect on the costs.

The issue of costs in this method is that the price which is spent on bars and concrete will

decrease. In the same way, it has few earthquake issues such as a reduction in damage risks

and also accelerated mass. [2] [11] [19] [28]

Page 14
 3.2 Types of Cobiax:

3.2.1 Reinforced concrete light pre-slab (with balls Cobiax):

It is one of the new methods of construction which has many advantages. By using this

method, there are no beams required to support the weights (only large spans).The number of

columns and the total weights will decrease. The concept of this method is to remove the non-

working dead load by placing hollow plastic spheres in the middle of the reinforcement

concrete. Meanwhile, the flexural strength of the slab does not change and allows the biaxial

load to transfer simply. The voids formers or hollow cobiax ball is placed between the upper

and the lower reinforcement layer. [2] [4] [6] [8]

Figure6.Cobiax slab

There are two types of balls on cobiax method and It depends on the thickness of slabs the

shape of balls will be different.

1. Slim-line: for slab range of 20 to 35 cm with depths 100 to 220 mm of these balls

are suitable.

2. Eco-line: for slabs range of 35 to 60 cm with depth of 225 to 450 mm these balls

are suitable.

Figure 7

Page 15
3.2.2 Reinforced concrete light pre-slab (with plastic shells):

It has the same method as the previous one but the difference is that instead of using balls,

the prefabricated plastic shells which are produced in factories, have been used.

By this method the length of spans could be up to 12.5 m. The advantage of this method is

that is does not required any load-bearing beam. [3]

Figure8. Light weight pre-slab with plastic shells

3.3 Engineering aspects of Cobiax

In general, in order to design and construct a building they should take care of several

features. These include the load bearing; the amount of deformation that may occur in the

span or the pillars (columns); the floors being acoustic and the design should reach the

reasonable resistance to the fire. The cobiax method which is one of the newest and the

ecological ways of construction, it has become popular in the recent years. In concrete slab,

the density of the concrete is high and it is weak in tension. To overcome this issue, engineers

add steel bars inside the concrete. In the majority of cases, there is one matrix of steel bars

which is usually placed in the lower half of the slabs, in order to take the tension strength

Page 16
which acts on the concrete slabs. This combination makes the structure heavy at the same

time, making the structure expensive.

The concept of the cobiax method is to remove as much non-working dead load as possible by

integrating the voids inside the slabs. This fact leads the considerable reduction in weight of

the structure. On the other hand, the reinforcement required to support the loads on the

structure is reduced. These aspects lead the final cost of the project to become more financial

and the material usage gradually comes down. In addition, time consumption is cut

significantly.

Figure9, The cobiax method achievements and advantages

Page 17
Finite element analysis of cobiax:

Cobiax
Method

Reinforced
Concrete

Figure10. Finite element analysis of cobiax method and reinforced concrete

In each of the cases, they had placed two matrices of steel bars inside the concrete. However,

the top picture shows the strain stress test of the cobiax method and bottom picture shows

the reinforced concrete. In this test, the balls covered 80% of the total length of the slab. As a

result, the cobiax slab was 48% lighter than the concrete reinforced slab. In both tests, the

maximum stress acted mostly at the edges of the slabs. In the Cobiax slab, the stresses are

mainly distributed in the last balls. Moreover, the maximum stresses did not reach near the

surface which decreases the possibility of cracks, as it shows in the picture.

In the reinforced concrete, the stress will affect horizontally and vertically. In contrast, when

voids are added into the slab, the forces which act on the surface distribute the pressure

inside the slab diagonally. The result of this fact was the increase in the stability of slab under

stress.

Advantages: (Cobiax Company)

 Weight reduction:

The slabs become 35 % lighter

Page 18
Load acting on foundation is reduced by 15%

Greater planning flexibility

 Span length:

Length of span could be up to 20m

There are no beams needed therefore the bottom of span is flat

The amount of columns could decrease up to 40%

 Earthquake protection:

Accelerated mass in the cobiax method is less than any other method

Earthquake design simplified

The possibility of damage occur on the structure decrease

 Economy:

The amount of concrete and reinforcement required minimized which is cost effective

Foundation of building placed less reinforcement

Effective retrofitting

 Sustainability:

Maximise the efficiency of material by saving material (minimise the concrete usage, less

reinforcement required)

Carbon emission and other pollution cut up to 20 in this method.

Cobiax method used recycled materials

Page 19
3.4 Projects with cobiax method:

ALTRA SEDE, MILAN, Italy

The whole complex constructed for cultural and functions and services. The whole complex

consists of two towers of 39-floors and the other remains of structure the 9 floors.

 Load reduction of 7200 tonnes

 Volume reduction of concrete 2900m3

 Slab depths is up to 35cm

 Maximum slab length is 10m

 Construction time: 2 years

 Emission cut: 600 tonnes

 30% reduction in concrete usage and 10% for steel

 9 storey building and 39 storey tower in middle

Figure11, 12, 13

Page 20
National stadium, Warsaw, Poland:

The national stadium is one of the huge successes in civil engineering. The project duration is

just less than two years. The multifunctional arena had many difficult conditions during

construction. The main challenge which engineers deal with is the poor subsoil condition. The

other problem was that it is located near the river and the project should be finished before

European football champions 2012.

 Maximum span length: 10 m

 Volume of concrete reduction in total : 13700 m3

 Cutting carbon dioxide emission: 2878 tons

 Total load reduction: 34260 tons

Figure 14, 15

Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany:

 Construction duration: 3 years

 Maximum span length: 10 m

 Load reduction: 1100 tons

Page 21
 Saving concrete: 440 m3

Figure 16, 17

Page 22
4. Design:

The proposed designs will follow the same concept which Cobiax method used. It means that,

the amount of concrete and the weight of slabs will be reduced by using balls. In other words,

the aim of the proposed design is to maximise the dead load reduction. However the

difference is that the shape of the balls will be changed to oval shape. The sizes of the balls

depend on each situation (loads) and the thickness of the slabs.

Figure 17, the formwork which keeps the ball in its place.

Figure 18, the oval balls and the

bars inside the concrete.

The oval shape increases the capability of the design of the ball, which means that the length

and height of the balls can be variable and customizable. The advantage of this design is that

the number of balls will decrease because they are tandem and also the length of them is

more than cobiax method. By the following reasons the number of balls and time consumption

to produce is reducing.

Another disparity is that the difference between the depth of the slabs and the height of the

voids are in a range of 10 to 15 cm which means 100-150 mm concrete should be laid on top

Page 23
and beneath the voids (voids should be in the middle of the slab). The assumption is that the

same range will be implied to the design unless the amount of concrete used in the

assumption is high. Therefore the depth of the slab should decrease.

Another reduction in the load could be the number of reinforcements. In most cases, it is

possible to have one matrix of bars. To compare, the cobiax method has two matrices of bars.

The bottom matrix can support most of the tension of the slab and the top matrix usually

covers the safety factors (e.g. earthquake or any sudden movement) whilst decreasing the

deflection.

The concrete reinforcement ratio is between 110-160 kg for each cubic meter of concrete.

(These records on each situation are different and depend on many facts). The fact is that

instead of using bars which are heavy, takes time to deliver on site and can take time to install

on the right place. It is possible to use less reinforcement (sometimes up to 50%); also instead

of using Steel bars, FRC is going to be used.

In general, the total amount of fibres which are used in the concrete are 5% of the weight of

concrete in slab. Therefore by using fibre instead of steel the weight and the cost of the

project will decrease, but it will not have the same strength of the steel bars.

Advantages:

 Weight reduction in slab up to 50%

 Easy to produce

 The size is customizable

 Time consumption in factory ( to produce )and on site ( less concrete required )

 Minimizing the number of balls

 Eco-friendly (use the recycled plastic for balls)

Page 24
Final decision about the fibre reinforced concrete:

Steel and glass fibre reinforcement are suitable materials which reach the required

expectations. By adding these fibres to concrete, the strength of concrete will be boosted.

Both of the fibres are eco-friendly, easy to produce, reasonably priced, high tensile strength

and resistance to freeze-thaw and heat. The fact is that glass fibres are not usually used in

slabs however GFRC’s tensile strength is less than steel (according to Stromberg Company).

Glass fibres are usually used in exterior building façade panels or in sandwich panels or as

architectural precast concrete. Therefore, GFRC will be used for walls and facades of the

buildings. As a result, steel fibres are going to be used for the slabs.

Page 25
5. Safety factors:

5.1 Pre-stress concrete

Overall when the length of the beam in the structure is increased, the amount of

reinforcement required to support the loads will also increase. This fact brings many problems

such as materials need go up because thicker slab and thicker columns should be placed. The

prestressed concrete is one of the common and useful methods when in the design, large

beams or few numbers of columns needed it is mostly recommended to use this method.

What is prestressed method?

The prestressed method is usually used for the warehouses and industrial buildings which

have enormous space without columns. The main purpose of this method is to overcome the

problem of cracking in reinforced concrete. Another purpose of this method is to minimize the

tensile strength and bending moment due to the loads which act on each member of the

structure. When the amount of loads (mostly dead loads, because live loads are not

permanent in most cases) are more than the capability of the concrete slab. The cracks

happen on surface of the slabs or sometimes slab fails.

Page 26
 Reinforced concrete under loading
consist of crack

Prestressed reinforced concrete

before loading

Prestressed reinforced concrete

under

Figure 19

Advantage of prestressed method:

 No permanent crack:

There are no permanent cracks in this method. This leads to the durability of the structure

increase compared to the concrete or reinforced concrete structures.

 Lightweight structure:

Usually prestressed concrete has significantly lighter weight than the reinforced concrete. The

reason that this method make the structure light in weight is because the workability of steel

bars in reinforce concrete have increased and the resistance of the cross section of concrete

against the loads will go up.

 No downward deflection

 More flexible in design (architecture)

Page 27
By changing the amount of stress on the steel bar, the structure could become rigid or flexible

without changing the ultimate strength.

 Economical:

This method is economical in projects which required large spans. [2] [23]

Process:

After the form works are installed the steel bars will be placed. Next, the bars stretch or strand

between two fixed abutment (depend on the loads which slab can take). Then the concrete is

spread (or cast) over the form work and after the concrete. After the curing processes, cables

cut and this act leads the steel bars returns to their normal position. As a result, the slab has

little deflection upward. [23]

5.2 Isolation base system:

In this design, the amount of reinforcement has been minimized. As a result, some factors

might fail the structure. One of the main and important facts is the stability of structure

against the earthquake.

Page 28
In this design, the amount of reinforced in concrete reduce up to 50% because the top matrix

of steel bar has been removed. For tall buildings (more than 20 floors the winds also affected

on the structure). The isolation system can be a good and a reasonable solution for situations

where the structure needs to handle the earthquake forces which are acting in diagonal,

horizontal and vertical on the slabs. Earthquake is sudden forces which act on the building and

cause the building to react aggressively. This condition causes cracks and failures to occur

(especially on the last floors). The movement, duration of the lower floors are low. As the

height of the floors increases, the movement, the duration of movement and the speed of the

movement increase.

Figure20, the movement of a short and a tall building during an earthquake

The base isolation separates the ground and the structure basement by using isolators and

dampers. The whole system acts like a spring when the earthquake occur the force are under

damped by the dampers. The base isolated system can minimize the amount of horizontal

acceleration from 20% to 33% compare to conventional structures in seismic events. This

method of foundation brings many advantages. These include the following:

Page 29
  The vibration frequency decreased

 The displacement and movement in the whole structure is same

 Decrease horizontal acceleration

 Minimize the amount of ground movement

Figure 21, base isolation system

The system consists of a connecting steel plate, rubber and internal steel plate. One of the

steel plate connecting places under the basements of structure and the other steel plate

connecting is on the ground. The inner steel and the rubber are acting similar to the spring.

The inner steels move between the rubbers. Meanwhile, as the inner steel plates move on the

rubber, rubbers reduce the energy which the steel plates have due to the earthquake

movements. As a result, the top steel plate connecting does not transfer all of the earthquake

Page 30
forces. This fact result the sudden movement or mass acceleration on structure decrease

enormously. [21]

5.3 Fire Resistance:

Another main fact which should be considered during the design is the fire resistance.

Concrete is one of the materials which have good resistance to fire. The advantage of using

concrete in a structure is that if fire ignites, the concrete does not emit any toxic fumes. Thus

concrete does not burn or require fire protection. In general, it does not reduce the integrity

of the structure during fire. In contrast, the steel frames are not as well as concrete as matter

of fire resistance and it is cost effective to use concrete. [22]

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6. Analysis

6.1Calculation results:

The assumptions of calculating the different behaviour on slab are: (same in all condition)

 Slab dimension: 8 m x 8 m x 0.25 m

 The balls only cover the middle area of slabs (4 x4) and has maximum distance of 2m

(or L/4) to each side of slab

 Dimension of bars: 16mm

 The distance between balls: 7.5cm

Reinforced concrete Cobiax Design

Concrete(m^3) 16.00 15.43 15.36

Reduction (%) - 3.58 3.98

Dead Load (kN/m^2) 7.75 7.53 7.50

Reduction (%) - 2.84 3.23

Design Moment(kNm) 126.34 124.16 123.84

Reduction (%) - 1.73 1.98

Table 1, Summary of numerical calculation (between concrete, cobiax and design)

Discussion:

The amount of concrete is much lower than what is expected (as the cobiax method achieved).

The reason of that could be the balls. The ball’s limitation area is lower than what has been

assumed in the report.

Page 32
With the current design we can conclude that the lighter the dead load, the less volume of

concrete has been used and also to reduce the moments on the slab.

By increasing the area of balls which can place in a slab, the concrete volume will decrease.

However the amount of reduction in concrete usage in design method will be more than the

cobiax method.

In this experiment, numbers of balls have also decrease by 16.67% compared to the cobiax

method. The number of balls in cobiax method is 18 x 18 and 324 balls in total. In contrast, the

total number of balls has been used in the proposed design method is 270 (15 x 18).

6.2Finite element results:

The following pictures show the displacement, stress and strain of the slab in varieties of sizes

and number of balls.

Assumptions:

 The length of slab is about 4m (half of the real slab)

 The force acting on slab is 0.01548 N/mm2

 The size ball in all of the analysis are same

 The dimensions are in X,Y,Z respectively

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400x400x400 (5 balls)

Page 34
Page 35
400x400x400 (7balls)

Page 36
Page 37
400x400x400 (10 balls)

Page 38
Page 39
400x350x400 (5 balls)

Page 40
Page 41
400x350x400 (7 balls)

Page 42
Page 43
400x350x400 (10 balls)

Page 44
Page 45
380x350x400 (11 balls)

Page 46
Page 47
360x350x400 (12balls)

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`

Page 49
 Total volume of concrete reduction
Dimension(mm) No. balls concrete(m^3) % Max. deflection (mm) Max. stress(N/mm^2) Max. strain

4000x400x400 0 0.6400 0.00% - - -

4000x400x400 5 0.6117 4.42% 1.00951 2.60961 69.598 E-6
4000x400x400 7 0.6004 6.18% 1.01251 2.60778 69.54.09 E-6

4000x400x400 10 0.5835 8.83% 1.05074 3.07128 81.9008 E-6

4000x350x400 0 0.5600 0.00% - - -

4000x350x400 5 0.5317 5.05% 0.98 2.69403 71.8409 E-6
4000x350x400 7 0.5204 7.07% 1.36 3.63116 97.1799 E-6
4000x350x400 10 0.5035 10.09% 1.55801 3.93487 0.10517 E-3
4180x350x400 0 0.5852 0.00% - - -
4180x350x400 11 0.5230 10.62% 1.23068 3.44853 91.9608 E-6

4320x350x400 0 0.5544 0.00% - - -

4320x350x400 12 0.4866 12.23% 2.12 4.61963 0.12319 E-3

Table2. Summary of the analysis of slabs

Page 50
Discussion:

Seven different dimensions of slabs and number of balls have been analysed. The results show

that by increasing the amount of balls, the stress and strain acting on the slab slightly

increases.

Analysing the same size of slab, when the number of balls increased, there is slight change in

deflection. However, the strain and stress of the slab is fluctuating. The amount of deflection

or displacement is negligible or very low. Then, by decreasing the distance between the balls,

the stress acting on the slab also increases. The important fact is that the amount of concrete

could be reducing more than 10%.

In contrast, the results show that a decrease in thickness of the slab is also directly

proportional to the deflection in the slab. The stress acting on the slab will increase and cause

more deflection to occur.

In the next step, by decreasing the thickness of slab shows the same result. The stress acting

on surface increases especially near the support.

Conclusion:

Engineers are looking to reduce the weight of the structure (mainly in slabs). The fact brings

about many advantages such as a decrease in the project’s time consumption, material usage,

pollution and total cost.

The concrete frame is more common in these days because of the cost and easy access to this

material. The cobiax method is the newest method which changed the construction industry.

Page 51
By using ball inside the concrete slab the weight of the slab will be minimize up to 35%. The

following reduction brings many advantages such the distance of columns increase and there

are no beams required.

The proposed design has the same idea and concept of cobiax. There are a few differences in

the proposed design. The shape of the balls is oval (3D-Elipse). By changing the shape of it can

bring many advantages. The main difference is by reducing the number of balls, the more

reduction in weight of slab occurs.

Another advantage of the design is instead of increasing the amount of reinforcement which

makes the structure heavy. It is possible to reduce the reinforcement and make the basement

more stable.

The propose design analyse the slabs which could behave normally (e.g. no irregular deflection

will occur on the slab or the strain is more than usual), then in the slab adding the fibre

reinforce in order to decrease the possibility of cracks and stops the crack propagation.

For safety factors, on Earthquake-prone areas instead of using two matrices of steel bars

which makes the structure heavy, it is possible to reduce the usage of steel bars up to 50% and

in the basement of the building the base isolation system can be installed.

Finally, the result shows that the proposed design is lighter than the cobiax method in the

same circumstances.

Page 52
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List of tables:

Figure 1: Taken by Mehran Vafaei Shalmani

Figure 2: Taken by Mehran Vafaei Shalmani

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Figure17, AutoCAD

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