Abstract
In this paper the effect of temperature change (thermal load) on one-story reinforced concrete frame buildings allocated in the UAE is studied. Sixty eight finite element models with different story heights and slab lengths were developed in ETABS to carry out this study. The effect of temperature change with the variation of story height, slab length and support condition on the lateral displacement and horizontal reactions was studied in this paper. The thermal load results for the fixed support models showed that for different buildings with the same column heights, the external columns’ displacements and reactions increased considerably with increasing the slab length. Comparing the horizontal reaction results –due to thermal loads- of the two modeled building heights (3 m and 6 m) showed that the 6 m models have lower reactions at external columns but larger top displacements. The comparison between the lateral load results for fixed and hinged support conditions showed that models with fixed support conditions had lower lateral displacement but higher horizontal reactions due to thermal loads. The effect of the support condition on the lateral displacement was larger for longer slab lengths whereas its effect on the horizontal reaction was larger for smaller slab lengths. The support conditions showed to have larger effect on the shorter column models.
Highlights
The UAE is known for its high temperatures especially during the summer period
These models were divided into two sets: fixed support reaction and hinged support reaction and each set consists of two model groups: the first group with column heights of 3.00 m and the second group with column heights of 6 m
Each group consists of 17 different ETABS models
Summary
The UAE is known for its high temperatures especially during the summer period. Seasonal changes in temperature causes overall structural deformation, displacements, in addition to differential stresses in concrete elements. It has to be considered for building serviceability conditions and to eliminate the additional thermal cracks [2]. Thermal effects are related to the difference between the highest temperature during summer and the lowest temperature during winter [2]. The magnitude of the forces developed and the amount of displacements caused by temperature changes are directly related to building length [2]. A common practice in the UAE is that expansion joints spacing shouldn’t be more than 120ft (36.6m) considering recognized committees recommendations [1,2,4], when the spacing exceeds 450ft (46m), a special design including a thermal study has to be performed [2,5]
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