RC Deep Beam

What is RC Deep Beam ?

Deep beams are structural elements loaded as beams in which a significant amount of the load is transferred to the supports by a compression thrust joining the load and the reaction. As a result, the strain distribution is no longer considered linear, and the shear deformations become significant when compared to pure flexure.

Floor slabs under horizontal load, short span beams carrying heavy loads, and transfer girders are examples of deep beams.

RC deep beams have many useful applications in building structures such as transfer girders, wall footings, foundation pile caps, floor diaphragms, and shear walls.

EXAMPLE

RC deep beams, which fail with shear compression, are the structural members having a shear span (orange line(a)) to effective depth (black line(d)) ratio, a/d, not exceeding 1.

Space Frame Design

Rules of Thumb for Space Frame Design

It is important for the architect to work side by side with the engineer when considering a space frame system. While the engineer normally sizes up the structural members after the architect has designed the structure, his/ her role must be more interactive to ensure that each design decision takes full advantage of a space frame system while managing costs. Simply changing the modular sizes of the space frame components could have a huge impact on material costs.

Typically, space frames are not as economical for spanning systems under 7-10 metre in length.

For determining depth of space frame;

a. Use ratio of 1:12 depth to span for a 1-way space frame.
b. Use ratio of 1:15 depth to span for a 2-way space frame.
c. Use ratio of 1:18 depth to span for a 3-way space frame.