Abstract:
The construction industry has been at the epicenter of the development of modern
nations. Good infrastructure accompanied by robust and quality construction provides
a stable platform for growth. Steel as a building material has been used for centuries
and it has its inherent advantages over other material forms. It has been considered a
basis for modernization and its practical manifestation can be seen in the developed
world. However, steel construction has not been adopted as extensively by the
developing nations due to reservations and some intrinsic problems such as
availability of material, less expertise in the field, etc. Moreover, owing to the
economic, sustainability and technical needs of the modern-day construction it was
also visualized to make the structure as light as possible to take the inherent
advantages to the maximum.
Considering the modern trends in the field and existing knowledge base, our group
chose to undertake a project in the domain of steel structures. As a case study a typical
office building in Riyadh, KSA was chosen for further deliberation. Contemporary
commercially available tools i.e., SAP2000 and Autodesk Revit were utilized for the
identification and design of critical sections and to solve any discrepancies.
After the initial design various methods were studied to make the structure as light as
possible. Based on our existing knowledge, studying of contemporary designs and
literature and suggestions of our advisor, we selected CFS infill walls as a solution.
Incorporating the solution lead to our final design which was reached upon by doing
numerous iterations to achieve optimum design efficiency. Being a relatively new
concept in the local industry we were able to learn something new from this endeavor
and further research in the subject would surely bring a change in the industry.
