Steel construction is capable of meeting the demands of multi floor buildings offering a speedier construction with better quality.
1. Introduction
Modern Construction Industry is seeking ways to improve their value by offering better quality, reliability and performance. Steel Constructions offer various advantages to meet these rising demands.
2. Advantages of Multi Floor Steel Constructions
Figure 1 : Multi Floor Steel Building
- Lightweight buildings
Steel has a higher strength to weigh ratio compared to concrete. The light structure of steel buildings requires smaller foundation. Also lighter structures are less prone to the earthquake forces.
- Architectural flexibility
Steel offers a great flexibility in architectural design thanks to its characteristics. Due to its smaller sections compared to concrete, steel buildings have slender columns. Also steel allows greater spans for layout without compromising the cost. The formability of the steel provides curved forms for building structures. Steel offers better connectivity for façade, cladding and metal balcony joints.
- Life Span
If painted and maintained properly, steel structures offer a better longevity than the concrete buildings. Also the nature of steel allows building extensions or changes in the future.
- Construction Pace
Steel structures are fabricated in a closed and controlled environment with modern CNC machines. This manufacturing technology provides a quick turnaround compared to the traditional methods. As all the parts are manufactured in the factory ready to be connected with bolts, the site installation does not consume much time. This brings down installation costs as well as any health and safety risks on the building site.
- Sustainability
Steel is a recyclable material. High proportion of the construction steel is also produced from the steel scrap. Steel fabrication also produces little to none waste making it a green solution for the building construction.
- Precision and Accuracy
Automated fabrication of the steel construction provides high accuracy and precision and requires less work on the building site. The precision of the steel fabrications also facilitates the installation of the building envelope.
- Quality Control
Well established steel fabrication quality control procedures provides traceability and reliance of the steel construction.
3. Composite Flooring
For multi floor buildings, composite construction often used in the flooring. The slab is formed by formed steel decking sheets and pouring concrete on top of it. In some cases, shear connectors (studs) are used to bond the concrete to the steel frame creating higher strength.
Figure 2 : Composite Floor in Steel Construction
Composite flooring does not require any propping or formwork which reduces the construction time and cuts costs. The load bearing frames can be either steel beams or for long spans special steel trusses.
Composite flooring increases the construction speed and useful floor height. Due to its lighter weight, it allows larger spans.
4. Conclusion
Steel has demonstrated all its advantages as a construction material not only for low rise structures but also multi-layer buildings. It has so many qualities that simply make it the ideal material of architects with great opportunities and freedom.
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