PinnacleHealth West Shore Hospital
Structural Depth
West Shore PinnacleHealth Hospital is a new 5 story 188,000 sq. ft. medical facility with a steel composite superstructure on spread footings wrapped primarily in precast concrete panels with other small sections of different architectural enclosures. Moving further into the assignment will reveal, in greater detail, how the designers chose the structural system they did, and if the changes presented in this proposal can provide a different successful solution to the design of the building. This proposal addresses that design alternative. The question that remains to be answered is can the building’s structural system be redesigned to a two way concrete slab with drop panels and can the impact of cost, time, and construction feasibility be improved on the construction and future expansion projects?
The alternative design will be a reinforced concrete two way slab system with drop panels. The regular and consistent pattern of the building will easily accept iterations of this typical sizing throughout the building. Columns may be purely reinforced concrete, or encased steel beams. These two alternative will be decided upon when designing the columns. The redesign in concrete may also be beneficial in terms of fire resistance of the structure, which can be critical because this is a hospital. No fireproofing will be necessary and it may also be possible to provide slightly thinner floors than in the original design. All of these differences will be critically compared in the depth and breadth write-ups and a conclusion will be defined for the final edition of the spring semester work.
Construction Management Breadth
With the building being redesigned, construction management is the first breadth topic that must be looked into. A construction cost analysis, along with a feasibility study on future expansion of a concrete structure compared to the original structure will be researched. This will further allow comparison of the two building systems and reinforce the learning goal of fully understanding their strengths and weaknesses. Understanding the sequencing impacts, cost impacts, and analysis methods will provide a well-rounded capability to choose the appropriate structural system when designing in the future.
Building Enclosure Breadth
West Shore Hospital has a precast concrete enclosure covering most of the building along with aluminum panel systems for architectural features and design. The precast panels are hung with metal tabs attached to the superstructure. These connections are designed by the precast manufacturer. The second breadth topic will analyze the current building enclosure and its connections for their thermal properties, and efficiency and be examined for thermal bridging. Any adjustments that may aid in the properties of the enclosure will then be designed and implemented to determine the most effective method.
Click on the link below to view a PDF document of Submission D,
Thesis Proposal
Revised Proposal
Uploaded: 12/11/15
Uploaded: 1/23/15
MAE Requirements
The thesis will include information to fulfill the MAE integrated degree requirements. Fulfillment of this requirement will include utilizing a 3D model in RAM or Etabs to further analyze and refine the buildings systems using information from AE 530 – Computer Modeling. After finding initial sizes by hand and manual verification, modeling will allow a quick way to iterate through load cases and expedite the refinement process. Also, in order to be able to design a similar lateral system, information from AE 534 – Steel Connections will be used to analyze and find a similarly performing system.
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