THE EFFECT OF SERVICE INSTALLATIONS ON STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY OF SLABS IN BUILDINGS

Abstract

In building construction industry service installations, usually housed in conduit pipes, arecommonly mounted inside reinforced concrete structural elements. This practice is adoptedto attain aesthetical outlook at both interior and exterior surfaces of the buildings.Depending on the extent of service installations, the cross sectional area of the loadbearing structural member is substantially reduced. However, the current structural designguidelines have no provision to accommodate the extent to which the existence of conduitpipes impairs the load bearing capacity of the structural element though reduced crosssectional area. This study has attempted to address this gap in structural design ofbuildings; it involves assessing the current design practice of considering a structuralelement as a full solid body and comparing its ultimate load bearing capacity with the onescontaining the conduit pipes. The study findings are based on test results from laboratoryexperiments on reinforced concrete slab models with varying intensity of conduit pipeinstallations as commonly practiced on construction sites. Recommendations are put forthwhen and how to consider the reduced load bearing capacity through the existence ofservice installations as part of structural engineering designs.