Chapter 3

Experience gained from working in consultant office

3.1 About the company

One of the places I have worked is a consultant office found around bole. The owner of the firm
is one of my teachers in unity university. His name is Merid belay. For the last 4 years he had
taught me strength of material I, Theory of structures I and integrated civil engineering Design I.
from all this courses he had given me enough to influence me to follow the building industry.
In general, the engineer is very experienced with many to give on the subject of structural
design and even construction technology. For the last 25 or 26 years he was working in
different engineering firms gaining both knowledge and wisdom. I was lucky enough to work
with him since my practical experience as a student is very limited.
The office he owns is a general consulting office working on structural Design, supervision and
when possible even construction. The office is found on B and C building around bole. The
office consists of a draftsman, structural Engineers and a construction manager. Each of which
is concerned with different tasks which I would explain later.

3.2 work division among different professionals and design process

In a typical design firm, we would expect to find draftsman and structural engineer both of
whom work interactively to achieve a goal. The goal in this case is a plausible, economical and
safe structural design with readable and neat detailing drawing.
The design process in any firm starts with the obtaining of an architectural design from
architects. Once the architectural design is obtained, the structural engineer tries to analyze it
to see if from the structural point of view all the location of columns, the spacing between
columns, the proposed column type (slim column, Square column, Rectangular, circular) gives
sense, in general the number of stories to the foot print ratio to asses seismic performance, the
type of slab system to be used (solid, ribbed or flat) and other relevant parameters according to
the building type.
Once the structural engineer analyzes the architectural design for the above parameters, if we
deem the design to be fit or possible to design it with limited resources, since in our country
economy is very vital factor for many owners, he proceeds further with the design. Otherwise
the drawing will be commented and if the architect agrees with the comments or modifications
ordered by the structural engineer, the drawing will be remade and the design process starts.
Once the structural engineer is sure with the architectural design, he would start the structural
design. The structural design is concerned with
1. Deciding the material to be used. Material to be used means steel, reinforced concrete
or timber. In current practice most buildings are made from reinforced concrete and its
common to specify concrete grade and rebar grade. And most of the time C-25 grade of
concrete is used for foundation, beams, slabs, concert gutter other members with less
stability problem and C-30, C-35 or C-40 is most commonly used from column since they
carry very large load and they often experience stability problem. Sometimes for flat
slabs higher grade concert might be used. And S-300 or S-400 grade of steel is proposed
as rebar material.
2. Once material is decided member size determination proceeds since the software takes
what we feed it, we need to have preliminary member size to go on. For beams and
slabs their depth is determined by using serviceability criteria and EBCS-2-1995 provides
equation for this purpose.


= (0.4 + 0.6 (400 )) EBCS-2-1995 section 5.2.3

The width of beams most of the time is fixed between 200 to 300 mm and it is useful to
place rebar material and mostly it should give good aesthetical value.

The cross section of column is decided based on load it is supposed to carry from floors
above it. And it depends on the function of the building and the concrete grade it is
made from.
The general method for column is
i. Determine design load based on the weight of floor slabs and live loads
ii. Determine the tributary area of column by taking half the c/c column spacing in
all directions
iii. Once the tributary area and design load are obtained, multiply the tributary area
with the number of floors and design load to obtain the approximate design axial
load of the column. In this method eccentricity is neglected since we need to
obtain preliminary dimensions only.
iv. Once the design axial load is obtained, by dividing it with the design strength of
concrete we would obtain area of the column section. By assuming the column
to be square, circular we can obtain its side dimension or diameter.
3. Once the size of beam, column and slab are obtained we can proceed to design of slabs.
Slab design is done in a typical excel template which simplified the process. The
template looks like the figure below. The template is capable of analyzing and designing
rectangular and trapezoidal panels. All you have to do is provide the sides of the
rectangle or trapezoid.
Figure 10, slab analysis excel template
As we can see from the figure the boundary conditions for the slab panel is assigned by the
numbers 0 and 1. And 0 means discontinuous while 1 means continuous. The other part we
change are the Fck, Fyk , Lengths a,b and c. the meaning of a,b and c is shown below for
trapezoidal panel.
Figure 11, meanings of a,b and c.

4. Once the slab design is completed we will proceed with the design stairs. In the practical
design of stairs excel templates play a vital role. And the template looks like the figure
below

Figure 12, stair design template.

 Once the stairs are designed and proportioned we will proceed with the next step.

5. Now we have all the data to proceed with the 3D modeling of the building in ETABS
9.7.4, which is commonly used in the current practice. The software is shown in the
figure below. Modeling should be carefully done since it represents the entire building
during different scenario. And any failure to do the model correct is every failure in
terms of output. And most experienced engineers have no problem with modeling.

Figure 13, ETABS 9.7.4 window

 6. Once the 3D model of the building is done different software parameters are feed by
either calculating them or from EBCS-2-1995 or EBCS-1-1995. For example, live loads
from EBCS-1-1995 and earthquake parameters calculations are shown below
3.2 Live Load
a) on Floor slab

q = 5.0kN/m 2 ( for Shop)

2
Live load per Rib = 0.4m x 5.0kN/m = 2.0kN/m

2
q = 3.0kN/m ( for Restaurant)

2
Live load per Rib = 0.4m x 3.0kN/m = 1.20kN/m

2
q = 2.0kN/m ( for Bed rooms)

2
Live load per Rib = 0.4m x 2.0kN/m = 0.80kN/m

Figure 14, Live loads from EBCS-1-1995

 3.3 Sesmic Load
Sesmic Load is activated by ETABS software by providnig the required parameters

from EBCS-8

Adiss Ababa (Zone 2) UBCS 94

a 0 = 0.05 Z = 0.05

F b = Sd (T) W ZIC
Fb W
Rw
Sd (T)= a . b . g

a = a 0. I

Fb = a . b . g . W g o = 0.20( for frame system)

kD = 2.00 (DC"L")
Rw = 1/g kR = 1.25 (non Regular structure)
kW = 1.00 ( for Frame System)
= 1/0.5

=2.00

I = 1.0 for Ordinary Building EBCS-8 Table 2.4

page # 29
1.2 S
C b 2 / 3 2.5 C = 0.075 (for RC moment resisting frames in SI
T units)

Site Cofficient S = 1.2 C = 0.031 (for RC moment resisting frames in

BS units)

Figure 15- Earthquake parameters calculation

Once this data is feed and some parameters like p-delta and load combinations defined,
the analysis is run to obtain design axial load, bending moment, Shear force and even
torsion for different frame sections. (by default ETABS considers any section drawn
between two stories to be column and horizontally drawn members to be beam)
7. Once we have the output from ETBAS we will use Eurocode-2-2004 to design the frame
section in order to obtain the amount of reinforcement necessary each section.
8. From the reactions at the base obtained from ETABS we can design the foundation if
geotechnical investigation of the subsoil is available. Foundation design is done by using
excel templates. If it is ribbed mat the slab template shown in the figure above is used.
And if isolated footings are to be designed then we use separate template prepared for
this purpose.
9. After obtaining the result from ETABS, slab and stair design from excel, we can know
communicate with the draftsman to proceed with the detailing. The draftsman needs
the beam and column layout directly printed from ETABS to include it in the layout. And
 in turn he would give us a printed out preliminary detailing with fake rebar spacing but
accurate rebar length. and we would adjust the fake spacing to make it same with the
calculated values.
10. After the detailing process is finished we would send the file to the project owner, either
architect or the client himself.

3.3 Project I am assigned

When I arrive at the design firm I was assigned with a B+G+8 building which is shown in the
figure below.

Figure 16, Typical floor plan of building

Following the above outlined steps, the building was designed and detailed.

3.4 challenges I faced while designing the building

1. A cantilever beam with no continuity on the other side subjected to a uniformly
distributed wall load failing by torsion due to a concentrated load from other two
beams.
 2. Large spans up to 7.4 m which cause large bending moments and shears.
3. Large column size

3.5 Remedial measures

1. The cantilever beam was replaced by shear wall (much stiffer) since the architectural
design wouldnt be disturbed
2. Using large depth of beam to compensate for the bending moments and shear.
3. Using shear walls to decrease the drift of the building which causes less stress in
columns and beams leading to less sizes.

3.6 Conclusion
Building design is an integrated process which needs so many professionals involved. And as
one of the professionals, i.e., structural engineer one must know a whole lot about reinforced
concrete structures in order to tackle the dynamic industry which we are facing today.
Other than having a decent knowledge in theoretical aspects of the industry one must also
dead with the practicability of what he knows in order to overcome challenges faced in the
design phase of the building.