Structural Design

Last updated on March 18th, 2019 at 10:20 am

Structural design or fabrication has a prominent role to play in offering optimum stability to your home. The underlying design and its strength imparting components would largely depend on the type of home you are constructing.

If you want to opt for conventional mode, steel bars have to be cut to accurate lengths to form joists. They have to be welded together in the shape determined by architect. The entire process can be completed at site and is labour intensive. Bolted design allows for shipping of prefabricated structural members to site which are then assembled directly. Majority of fabrication tasks are carried out at workshops. This allows for strategic use of cutting edge tools which ensure that the strength of the material would be more and capable of enduring load dynamically. Use of light gauge steel can also be considered wherein thin steel sheets are moulded to assume C or Z sectioned shapes.

Wind resistance should be factored in if you are planning to have multiple floors in your house. Building codes specify design windspeeds wherein the structural design is inherently fortified to withstand gusty winds exerting a force of 150 Kg/ sq.m or more. When earthquake strikes, the horizontal and vertical sections of the building are ruthlessly shaken which cause the main structure of the building to be detached from its foundation. The heaviness of building determines the amount of force it would experience. The structural design should be strong enough to bear the buckling impact of such horizontal forces. You can interact with civil engineer at site to learn whether proper strength has been embedded in the structure or not.

You can also go for precast construction. Concrete structures are built using prefabricated elements off-site, transported to your location and then simply assembled for the shape to develop as per your plan. Construction cost plummets significantly as less labour is required, wet concrete need not be handled at site, and assembling occurs quickly. Scaffolding needs at site along with site supervision requirements are eliminated. Further, scope of rusting or corrosion of joist and beam members is very low as moisture intrusion does not occur. Everything is mechanized with little manual intervention. Further, fire and high temperatures would not corrode the consistency of structural members. You should make it a point to invest significantly in structural members. Further, the structural design finalized should be visualized through 3D software to ascertain its stability and strength factors.