Learning tool for reinforced concrete design

Reinforced concrete design is considered as a vitally important discipline in the field of civil engineering. The design of reinforced concrete is done to various standards and well established code of practices. The British standard, BS 8110, has been followed for the design of reinforced concrete structures in Sri Lanka for almost three decades now. However, with the withdrawal of BS8110 by the United Kingdom to pave the way for European common standards, Sri Lanka has been compelled to use Euro standards or adopt other international standard for the design of reinforced concrete. American Concrete Institute ACI 318(2008), European Standard EC2 (BS EN 1992-1-2), Japan Concrete Institute JCI standards and model codes like CEB FIP Model Code 90 are the commonly used international standards for reinforced concrete design. It is also known that Sri Lanka are gearing to embrace the EC2 (BS EN 1992-1-2) in place of the withdrawn BS8110.The design approaches and design provisions of various standards are different form one another and results of various design approaches and their structural implications are continuously being debated in various forums. It is considered that the knowledge of different design approaches is essential for the better understanding of the behaviour of reinforced concrete. In addition, there is an especial requirement to train structural engineers in Sri Lanka to adopt Euro standards. Both of the above objectives can be achieved by a well design learning tool. Leaning tool allows the users to learn on their own phase. It is in this back ground that interactive learning tool “Recode” is formulated. This paper presents various features of Recode, the learning tool developed to teach beginners how to do design under different standards and the experienced, how to adopt to changing scenarios to which their designs have to be confirmed

Investigation on Improvement of Low Cost NERD Slab System

The NERD center floor slab system was introduced by late Dr. A.N.S. Kulasinghe in early 1987 specially for domestic buildings which are used by middle income families in Sri Lanka. The invention of NERD system directed to identify cost effective slab construction system relative to conventional slab system and also the use of un-propped construction technique and reduction of depth of slab caused to reduce construction time and material required for construction activities. The NERD system consists with 50 mm thick in-situ concrete slab retain on trapezoidal shape pre-stressed beams which are placed by keeping 600 mm interval between each. Although, the concept of NERD system is being widely adapted in domestic building construction exposed beam under the soffit of the slab keeps away people from the use of NERD slab system. Therefore, this research has been given much more advertency to make it as flat soffit slab with the improvement of structural arrangement of the NERD system such a way that changing the shape of pre-stressed beam and thickness of in-situ concrete slab with hollow arrangement to reduce utilized concrete of the slab