Efficiency of a fabric formed concrete slab

The built environment is responsible for approximately 50% of the carbon emissions on the planet. Therefore, it is of major importance to reduce the carbon footprint of our structures to better preserve our environment for future generations. Furthermore, studies demonstrate that flooring systems can be responsible for 70% of material consumption in high rise buildings, and about the same proportion of embodied carbon energy. Based on these considerations, this thesis suggests a new form of concrete slab and quantifies its efficiency in terms of material, carbon energy and cost savings compared to a traditional reinforced concrete flooring system. The proposed form of concrete slab is constructed using fabric formwork. It provides the flexibility and ease of construction needed to build such a low-volume structural shape. After establishing that this slab can be about 50% lighter than a traditional reinforced concrete slab, the thesis models and quantifies the savings in other parts of the structure and shows that the embodied carbon footprint of the entire building can be reduced by approximately 50%. Keywords: Concrete slab - Compression only - Fabric-formworks - Carbon energy

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Menez, Martin Herve

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Corentin Fivet and John A. Ochsendorf.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/104241

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/104241