Efficient structural design for safer buildings

Safe and secure buildings to minimize risk to occupants is the primary objective of all stakeholders, including developers, architects, engineers, contractors and anyone else involved in the process. This can only be ensured through an integrated design approach and foolproof structural engineering, deploying best practices. The first step towards this exercise is risk assessment to gauge the damage potential from fire, natural elements like quakes, floods, hurricane winds and other extreme weather events.

What is structural design?

The core principle of structural design is to establish safety parameters for any structure to support a certain amount of load and offer a cost-effective solution through a proactive methodology that predicts and protects. This involves calculating the cross-sectional dimensions, amount of reinforcement, type of materials, etc required to counteract the internal pressures that must be arrived at through meticulous structural scrutiny.

It is absolutely critical to integrate elements of structural design in the process of a building’s architecture and design at a very early stage so that the ultimate edifice is safe and secure and not plagued by inconsistencies that might compromise its structural integrity.

In an ideal scenario, structural designers should guide engineers at every step of the construction process so that buildings are safe and stable and efficient enough to withstand different forces throughout their lifespan.

Core principles of hazard mitigation:

# Fire protection: A comprehensive plan for protection against fire involves a holistic systems approach where all the components of the structure are evaluated in detail to arrive at a complete fire-safety system package.

# Occupant health & safety: Dedication towards details regarding issues like indoor air quality, electrical and fire safety, ergonomics and preventing mishaps forms the fulcrum of safe and healthy building design and operation. This can go a long way in protecting the occupants against certain injuries and ailments.

# Combating Nature’s fury: The structural design of a building must take into account the havoc extreme weather events like earthquakes, floods, tornados or forest fires can wreak. Hence, both maximum protection as well as post-catastrophe damage control should be factored in.

# Ensuring occupants’ security: Efficient structural design also protects against human aggression like theft, forced entry, physical assault, etc by incorporating built-in pre-emptive systems to quickly detect threat and mitigate the danger by delaying/limiting acts of serious damage by the perpetrators.

Role of structural design:

# Provide stability: To prevent the building and its constituent members from oscillating, collapsing or caving in under the pressure of day-to-day activities and/or environmental load.

# Withstand stress: To make sure that the building doesn’t disintegrate under the collective stress caused by the inherent loads on its various structural components.

# Ensure serviceability: Efficient structural design ensures that a building works smoothly under a service load. This is achieved by creating ample solidity and fortifications to keep within acceptable limits anomalies like deformations, crack spacing and pulsations.

# Design for visual appeal: The aesthetics of a building is an absolutely vital element of good structural design, also making sure that the interior structure is clearly visible.# Adhere to budget: Since working within the budgetary constraints is absolutely imperative, it becomes a necessity to have a thorough knowledge of various materials, their uses and costs.