Cost Effectiveness of Composite Frames in Condominium Houses

Abstract

Steel-concrete composite construction has gained wide acceptance worldwide as an alternative to pure steel and pure concrete construction. However, this system is a relatively new concept for the construction industry in Ethiopia. Reinforced concrete members are used in the framing system for most of the buildings since this is the most convenient & economic system for low-rise as well as short beam span.However, for medium to wide-spaced column in the building frames, this type of structure is no longer economic because of increased dead load, less stiffness, span restriction and hazardous formwork. Steel-concrete composite frame system can provide an effective and economic solution to most of these problems in medium to wide spaced column buildings. An attempt has been made in this study to explore the cost effectiveness of steel-concrete composite construction by taking condominium houses currently undergoing in our country for maximum column spacing above which the steel-concrete composite frame structure is cost effective. A cost versus frequently occurred maximum column spacing variation curves along both axes shows that for closely spaced column building frames structures, the conventional  reinforced concrete frame system is cheaper than its equivalent steel-concrete composite system. However, this curves show for building frames with column spacing between 9 to 10m and greater than this span along both axes, steel-concrete composite construction has economical advantages than reinforced concrete construction and 9 to 12 and greater than this storeys, again,  steel-concrete composite construction has economical advantages than reinforced concrete construction in our country.

Keywords: Composite column, composite beam, composite slab, shears connectors and Etabs