CAD PACKAGE FOR DESIGN OF GRID FLOORS

Abstract

A grid floor can be described as a set of coplanar interconnecting ribs spaced at a particular distance in two directions. Grid floors are suitable for large spans (10- 20m) and are usually provided in the buildings where top flat surface of the floor is an essential requirement. Grid floor can be supported on walls or columns as per the functional and structural demands. To analyze and design the grid floors manually is a tedious and time-consuming affair as a number of structural members (ribs/slab) are interconnected. It is also cumbersome to repeat the same design using different parameters. Hence there is a great need to automate the process of designing. A CAD package for design of grid floors has been developed in this dissertation to full fill this demand. The package is written in Fortran and C language. The software is interactive and user friendly. The input is minimal. It can be easily modified and expanded for future works. The package can help designers to make more rational and efficient design. Some test problems have also been illustrated to check the efficacy of the software