stiffened grid type beam and slab foundation

In regions that contend with highly expansive clay soils, it is common for 2 to 6 feet of existing soil to be removed over the entirety of the building footprint and replaced with compacted select fill soils consisting of low expansive clay soils with low permeability. Engineers conventionally design stiffened slab-on-grade foundations to resist the effects of expansive soil movements. Seasonal moisture variations can cause expansive soils to shrink and swell differentially and induce swell pressures over 4,000 pounds per square foot. Expansive SoilsĮxpansive soils contain near-surface clay and are thus prone to volumetric changes as moisture content fluctuates. Rendering of Oscar Johnson Community Center. It also allows for ease of future modification/repair for plumbing and mechanical systems, given that there is direct access to the crawl space. The system is designed to decouple as much of the structure as possible from expansive soil movements while saving overall foundation cost and construction time. DUDLEY’s solution is building the Community Center’s foundation using a suspended hollow core plank slab system supported by elevated concrete beams constructed on top of belled piers. There are many factors and environmental loads at play, but perhaps the most daunting is expansive soils. To fulfill that goal, however, the building needs to stand the test of time.

Its 120,000 square feet of public space strives to affect countless lives for more than one hundred years. The building will utilize mass timber construction and is intended to be an architectural statement for the community. The project’s architecture firm is Burditt Consultants and the structural engineering firm is DUDLEY. Community Center in Conroe, Texas, will begin construction in 2022.

Stiffened grid type beam and slab foundation