Master of Science / Department of Architectural Engineering and Construction Science / Kimberly W. Kramer / This report offers a parametric study analyzing the vertical reinforcement for slender reinforced concrete walls (tilt-up panels) subject to 90 miles per hour (mph), 110 mph, 130 mph, and 150 mph three-second gust wind speeds. Wall panel heights of 32 feet (ft) and 40 ft are considered for one-story warehouse structures. First, solid tilt-up panels serve as the base design used in the comparison process. Next, square openings of 4 ft, 8 ft, 12 ft, and 16 ft centered in the wall panel, are analyzed. A total of 32 tilt-up panel designs are conducted, establishing the most economical design by the least amount of reinforcement and concrete used. In addition to lateral wind pressures, the gravity loads acting on the load bearing tilt-up panel are dead load, roof live load, and snow load. All loads for this report are determined based on a typical 24 ft by 24 ft bay. The procedure to design the tilt-up panels is the Alternative Design of Slender Walls outlined in the American Concrete Institute standard ACI 318-08 Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete and Commentary Section 14.8 In general, an increase in panel height, lateral wind pressure, and/or panel openings, requires an increase in reinforcement to meet strength and serviceability. Typical vertical reinforcement in tilt-up panels is #4, #5, and #6 size reinforcement bars. A double-mat reinforcement scheme is utilized when the section requires an increase in reinforcement provided by use of a single-layer of reinforcement. A thicker tilt-up panel may be needed to ensure tension-controlled behavior. Panel thicknesses of 7.25 inches (in), 9.25 in, and 11.25 in are considered in design.

Master of Science / Department of Architectural Engineering and Construction Science / Kimberly W. Kramer / This report uses and references (Analysis of Vertical Reinforcement in Slender Reinforced Concrete (Tilt-up) Panels with Openings & Subject to Varying Wind Pressures) (Bartels, 2010) to investigate the design philosophy and assumptions used in Section 14.8 of the ACI 318-08 (ACI Committee 318, 2008). The design philosophy and assumptions are analyzed to determine the applicability and accuracy of Section 14.8 of the ACI 318-08 (ACI Committee 318, 2008) to the design and analysis of slender concrete panels with openings. Special emphasis is placed on identifying and quantifying the degree of effect that each assumption has on the final design of the panel. These topics include stress distribution around openings, the effect of varying stiffness of the member on the P-delta effect, stiffness variations due to workmanship and tolerances, and the effect of axial load on the stiffness of the member. This is accomplished through the use of specially designed computer analyses that isolate an assumption or effect to determine its impact on the final design. This study shows that two-way effects are almost non-existant, the portion of the panel above the opening has very little effect on the P-delta effects, the code specified reduction in bending stiffness due to workmanship and tolerances appear to be appropriate, and the effective area of reinforcement overestimates the stiffness of the panel.

This master’s thesis focuses on the preparation of project documentation for construction of a four-storey multifunction building. The building is located in Říčany u Prahy. The longer facades of the multipurpose house are facing to the east and west and its gables are facing to the south and north. The building is divided by a staircase into two virtually identical parts. The perimeter wall on the ground floor is at its eastern facade recessed. This allowed to create a covered archway over the entrance the commercial part of the house. The surface of the facades of the second to fourth storey is divided by loggias and terraces. The commercial spaces are located on the ground floor and there is a total of 24 apartments on the rest of the storeys. The vertical supporting structures are made of the Porotherm system, the ceilings are made of precast reinforced concrete panels. The structure's roofing is a flat roof.

This master’s thesis focuses on the preparation of project documentation for construction part of a multifunction building. This buildig has a five floors, the first one is a underground and four of them are above grand. The building is located in part of Prague – Dolní Chabry. Building has a rectangle shape which isin the midle shifted and makes two similar section. Each sectin has own main entry, stairs and lifts. Orientation the longer facades of the multipurpose house are facing to south and north in the longer asis. Garage for resident is located in the lowest floor. In the first floor above ground is commercial part of the house, six commercial spaces. In the rest of the floors are located 26 apartments. Vertical structure are made of the Porother systém and Best systém, celings are meda from prefaricated reinforced concrete panels. Structure of the roof is solid by single skin flat roof.

The aim of the diploma thesis is to elaborate project documentation of a new-build mixed-use building in Moravske Budejovice, in the cadastral area of Moravske Budejovice. The mixed-use building comprises a partial cellar and three floors above the ground. In the cellar, technical facilities and storage space for the residental part of the building can be found. The ground floor and the part of the first floor are designed for commercial premises, a hairdresser's, a florist's, a bookshop and a café. Residental unit consisting of three flats is located on the first and second floor. the building is made from 300 mm thick ceramic construction blocks with the external thermal insulation system. Ceiling construction is made of 250 mm thick concrete monolithic panels. Furthermore, the documentation deals with potable water, electric power and gas couplers, sewerage system, rainwater sewer and paved surface for pedestrians and motor vehicles. The thesis is elaborated as documentation for the building execution.

Shear cracks are formed when high oblique tensile stresses, e.g. in thin webs, exceed the tensile strength. A known example of this phenomenon is the extensive shear cracks that were found on the box-girder bridges Gröndal and Alvik, which were mainly caused by insufficient amount of shear reinforcement. In order to avoid this incident (inadequate amount of shear reinforcement), the reinforcement stress is often being assumed as a ultimate limit load in order to fulfill requirements regarding crack control in the service-ability limit state (SLS). This method has led to a overestimation of the reinforcement amount in bridge-design. The aim of this master thesis is therefor to study the shear crack phenomenon and investigate if the amount of shear reinforcement in bridges can be reduced. The first part of this thesis studies the shear cracking behavior in concrete in a plane stress state, while the second part focus how design standards as well as manuals treats shear cracks. Shear cracking in the reinforced concrete panels has been studied with non-linear finite element analysis and compared to experimental testings performed by the University of Toronto. Three different loading conditions for the panels has been analyzed: pureshear, compression or tension combined with shear. The panels are to represent parts of a web in a box-girder bridge that are subjected to in-plane stresses. The non-linear finite element analysis was performed in the FE-program Atena where mainly the crack propagation and crack pattern were studied. The material model in Atena is a smeared crack model with either fixed or rotated crack direction. The panel analysis, in SLS, gave various results. For loading conditions pure shear and tension/shear, the response of the FE-analysis gave a similar result regarding crack pattern but differed in size of crack width. For compression/shear, only micro-cracks developed and did not reflect the result from the real panel tests. This may be the consequence of a too stiff FE-model and the fact that, in the real tests, some cracks occurred due to out-of-plane bending. With methods described in Eurocode 2 and the Swedish handbook for EC2, a shear crack calculation model was created in order to determine the reinforcement stress and crack width. As a reference for the shear crack calculations, a wing structure (1 m strip) has been used which is part of a railway bridge located in Abisko. These calculations were done in order to investigate if the amount of shear reinforcement could be reduced and at the same time fulfill crack control demands in SLS. The bridge department at Tyréns AB concluded, according to a truss model, that the wing section should be reinforced with a amount of 14.1 cm2/m2 while our model showed that the crack width demand could be fulfilled with a equivalent amount of 9.82 cm2/m2, i.e. a reduction around 30%.

The thesis deals with the design of a two-storey L-shaped smart building for amenities with a low energy consumption concept in mind. The ground floor will be used as a café and technical facilities. The second floor is designed for a small design office. The first part of the thesis is devoted to the architectural and structural design. The selected load-bearing system is a wall system made of Silka sand-lime blocks. The floor and roof are designed of prestressed reinforced concrete panels Spiroll. Stone wool is used as the main thermal insulation. The flat roof is designed green extensive. The second part of the thesis deals with the building environment technology, which will use energy from photovoltaic panels and will be supplied with heat from a local central heat source. Air exchange is provided by two HVAC units. Cooling is designed as a VRF system with refrigerant. The third part of the thesis deals with the acoustic assessment. The main topic is optimizing the reverberation time in the open space office. For the preparation of the thesis, the Archicad and Autocad software, MS Excel and Word or Deksoft were used.