1.

0 Introduction
Due to the rapid population growth and limited land area, high rise and medium rise buildings are
becoming more and more important to a countrys economic power. As in the majority of projects,
buildings are designed primarily to satisfy the client requirements by providing the essential layout.
The architect will dictate the functional layout, aesthetics reflecting the client needs. The engineer is
subsequently tasked to produce an economical structural design so that the structure develops
sufficient strength against failure, stiffness for deflection requirements as well as to meet other
performance needs. The aforementioned tasks form part of the routine work of the practising engineer.
In the analysis of medium/high-rise buildings, the three main structural actions of concern are the
permanent loads due to self-weight of members, variable loads due to the anticipated building use and
dynamic loads such as wind loads. The relative importance of these three actions varies largely
depending on the building type and use.
In medium rise and high rise buildings, the importance of wind loads becomes more apparent which
influences the design. The reason is that as the number of storeys for a building increases, the wind
pressure exerted on the top of the building also increase. The design should take into account both; the
pressure acting on the building face where the wind force is acting and the suction induced on the
opposite face of the building. Other problems associated with wind force include; increase in bending
moment, shear force and deflection. So, high/medium rise building must be designed to provide
adequate stiffness to account for the wind pressure which can be achieved with the use of braced
moment resisting frames. For buildings constructed with flat slab due to constrains like; limited time,
lower floor height or ease of installation of mechanical and electrical services, are more affected by
lateral forces as flat slab are less rigid. To counteract the effect of wind load in modern multi-storey
buildings, lateral stability should be provided by a system of frames or walls, or a combination of
both.
Shear walls are structures that provide resistance to horizontal loadings. The walls of the shear walls
may be part of a service core or a stair well, or they serve as partitions between accommodations.
They are usually continuous down to the base to which they are rigidly attached to form vertical
cantilevers. Shear walls are usually planar, but are often L-, T-, I-, or U- shaped to suit the planning
and to increase their flexural stiffnesss. The arrangements of shear walls and core units should be
such that the building is stiff in both flexure and torsion. The lateral load transmitted to each wall is a
function of its stiffness, and its position in relation to the shear centre of the system.
As part of this mini-project, we were tasked to analyse and design structural members of the
Engineering tower at the University Of Mauritius which is the same building as in the mini-project for

the module Advanced Structural Analysis and Design I. The building is made of reinforced concrete
with a raft foundation, a lift shaft with an eccentricity of one meter in both axes and comprises of a
total of 9 floors (excluding basement) with flat-slabs and has a 36 m x 24 m plan area with repeating
floors and. The mini-project hence consisted of two specific parts. The first one is the analysis of the
structure whereby the purpose was to perform a 2-D analysis of the building including a lift shaft. The
floors include the basement, the ground floor, from the first to fifth floor and finally the roof.
Secondly, the design of structural members includes major structures such as flat slabs, columns,
beams, the shear walls, the lift shaft and the raft footing using reinforced concrete. The codes of
practice adopted were British Standard for the analysis and design of the members.
This mini project was assigned as part of the Advanced Structural Analysis and Design II module so
that further understanding of how 2D frames are broken down and the analysis of buildings is carried
out incorporating shear walls and lift shaft for lateral stability.
Aims
The two main aims of the mini-project were to analyse and design the Engineering Tower building
with added shear walls and lift shaft, and to evaluate the effect of eccentricity of shear centre on the
building.
Objectives
The relevant objectives were as follows:

Positioning of the lift shaft and shear walls in the layouts from the CIVE 3014 mini-project in

order to have a one meter eccentricity for the shear centre of the building in both axes.
Calculating the dead loads and live loads using relevant codes of practice, like BS 6399 and

CP3.
Selecting an appropriate model of the building for the software analysis.
Modelling and analysing the building in two-dimensional frame.
Designing and detailing reinforced concrete structural members using relevant codes of
practice such as BS 8110 and BS 8666, to industry standard.

Scope and limitations

The architectural and structural layouts from the previous mini-project for CIVE 3014 module were
used. Therefore, some dimensions might have a margin of error since not all dimensions could not be
measured during the survey due to health and safety considerations. Reasonable visual estimates were
done in such circumstances.