SHORTENING OF REINFORCED CONCRETE COLUMNS IN TALL BUILDING

STRUCTURES

INTRODUCTION
With Nigerias increasing population that presently stands at 175 million and continuous
urbanization of its cities such as Lagos and Abuja, tall buildings that grace the skyline of
developed and populated cities of the world such as Hong Kong, New York, Shanghai and
Shenzhen (just to mention a few) are beginning to appear in Nigerias mega cities. Some of
such buildings include the twin 24-storey reinforced concrete World Trade Centre (WTC)
located in the central business district of Abuja, Nigeria (figure 1) and the Millennium tower
(figure 2) which is currently under construction and also located in Abuja, Nigeria. The WTC
towers boast a wall-frame lateral load resisting structural system which is very common in
buildings extending up to 50m in height [1]. The rigid frames (comprising of flat plates and
columns) of the WTC towers are connected to the reinforced concrete core by slabs enabling
wall-frame interaction. On the other hand, the millennium tower which is expected to reach a
height of 170m on completion is made of a braced-coupled core tubular structural system
which consist of three hollow cylindrical reinforced concrete cores interconnected by steel
links and is braced on the exterior by steel frames as shown in figure 3. Single core structures
are not efficient in reaching the expected height of 170m; hence it is believed that it is for this
reason that the hollow cylindrical cores are linked together by steel braces to initiate
structural interaction between them to create a more rigid structure. Although for such a
structural system, it is not uncommon that the external steel exo-skeleton (see figure 3) will
be required to resist all the lateral load while the core takes the gravity load .However,
coupled core structures are known to possess high lateral rigidity as a result of their ability to
resist lateral loads by a combination of the flexural action of the individual cores and frame
action of the coupling effect [2]. Hence not allowing for their structural participation at the
design stage of a structure could lead to a less economical structure and a less structural
robust structural system.

Figure 1: WORLD TRADE CENTRE, ABUJA

(PHOTO CREDIT:
www.WTCNIGERIA.com.ng)

The afore-described buildings although still less structurally and architecturally convoluted
when compared to their counterparts in developed cities of the world; their construction at
this point in time signals that taller buildings will begin to grace the skylines of these
Nigerian cities as the population increase in a foreseeable period of time.
Concrete has established itself as a dominant construction material in the Nigerian building
industry and it is expected that this trend continues even as the industry dives into the tall
building age. Thus it is vital that the Nigerian structural engineer understands some
significant structural reaction that occur in all building and their structural effects are
negligible in low medium rise buildings but cannot be ignored in tall buildings. One of such
is the phenomenon of axial shortening of reinforced concrete columns which occurs as a
result of large compressive stress, shrinkage, long term creep deformation of concrete and
construction sequence. The Phenomenon, Causative elements, their effect on the structural
performance of tall buildings and ways of reducing them are discussed herein.

PHENOMENON OF COLUMN SHORTENING

Structural elements such as columns and walls that make up the vertical load resisting system
of tall buildings are subjected to large axial displacement due to the accumulated storey loads
from a large number of floors. The amount of axial deformation becomes more aggravated in
concrete buildings as a result of time dependent properties of concrete. A steel column
located in the interior of a 60-storey building could typically undergo an axial deformation of
up to 153mm due to the accumulation of dead and live actions [3]. However, if this same
column were to be replaced by reinforced concrete, an additional axial displacement of about
76mm to 102mm or even higher is bound to occur due to time dependent shrinkage and creep
behaviour of concrete [3]. Shortening of columns should ideally cause a downward vertical
displacement of each floor if all the columns in a building are subjected to an equal amount
of loading. However, this is not the case in practice. Hence the difference in axial loading
causes differential column shortening which could adversely affect the levelness of floor
diaphragms, cause inclination and instability of the roofing structure and affect the buildings
faade. Movement due to differential column shortening could also generate two-way
shearing stresses at slab-column junctions in tall buildings were flat plates are employed as
floor system. One-way shear stress would also be generated in beam-slab structures. If this
additional shearing stresses are not accounted for, they could lead to ultimate limit state
failure of a particular floor in a building and initiate progressive failure.
The additional shearing stresses as a result of redistribution of forces is more severe in
structures with closely spaced columns or where the columns are connected by very stiff
horizontal members such as deep beams, transfer beams, transfer slabs and outriggers. In the
case of reinforced concrete buildings which are made of flexible horizontal connecting
members and do not exceed 30-storey in height, the total amount of column shortening due to
instantaneous axial deformation and deformation due to creep and shrinkage can be computed
neglecting the effect of force redistribution as a result of restrain offered by frame action [4].
In addition to these structural effects, work by blast et al [5] has shown that mechanical
installations could also be damaged by shortening of vertical load resisting elements in tall
buildings. [5] measured the shortening that has occurred in a 12 year old 45 storey 165m tall
reinforced concrete building. In this building, the main water pipe spanned uninterrupted

from the 2nd sub-basement level to the 45th floor before turning 90 degrees to run horizontally
and a sealant was applied at the 45 th floor slab. As the building columns shortened, the 45th
floor slab moved in the downward direction. [5] reported that the bond between the sealant
and the concrete slab failed. Additionally, four metal shims measuring 102mm in thickness
were required to maintain full contain between the pipe support at the 45 th level and the
horizontal pipe. Such failure could lead to leakage of the pipe and also cause the water pipe to
act as a structural member subjecting it to loads which is was not designed for.
The afore-discussed phenomenon of column shortening and its consequences are proofs of
the structural importance of considering

ANALYSIS OF COLUMN SHORTENING

In order to analyze the shortening of columns in tall buildings, the following column segment
analogy will be used.
Consider the segment of a column in a tall building that was cast at a time 0 as shown in
figure 4. At this time, the floor slabs and beams have not been cast hence no loading has been
applied to the column. Immediately after the concrete sets or at the end of moist curing at
time d (see figure 4) deformation begins to occur in the concrete column segment as a
result of development of shrinkage strain
the floor system is cast at time

sh(t )

as water is lost from the concrete. When

0 , there is a sudden increase in the deformation of the

column segment as result of an instantaneous elastic strain

e (t) . An additional gradual

increase in the axial deformation of the column occurs over a prolonged period of time as a
result of creep induced strain cr (t) under the sustained load conditions. Hence the total
strain causing the shortening of the column segment is:

sh (t )

+ e (t ) + cr (t)

(1)

Readers should be aware that equation 1 is not totally correct as this mathematical expression
may not completely capture the physical phenomenon in concrete but it is usual to assume
that all three components are independent and may be evaluated separately and combined
using the principle of superposition.
It should be known that except the column segment(s) is/are at the ground level, there casting
cause an additional creep loading on the floor below them causing an additional shortening.
This may however be evaluated and lump summed with cr (t) to include this creep effect.
The instantaneous strain

e (t)

can be easily obtained from the well-known linear stress-

strain relationship:
e ( t ) =
Where

Ec ( o )

0
E 0

(2)

represents the sustained stress due to application of the load at time

and

is the elastic modulus of the concrete at the time of application of the load. There

are various mathematical relationships available for evaluating the time varying elastic
modulus of concrete. Interested readers can make reference to [6], [7] and [8]. An illustrative
example and detailed explanation of an approximate method of calculating the differential
shortening due to instantaneous strain e ( t ) using equation 2 is available in [3, pp. 644659]. Designers of concrete structures should be aware that when the applied stress on a
concrete structure exceeds 40% of the concrete strength, the stress-strain behaviour of
concrete material becomes non-linear and equation 2 becomes inapplicable. In such cases,
Concrete strain due to creep and shrinkage are affected by many factors such as concrete
strength, age of concrete at loading or unloading, curing conditions, ambient conditions, type
of cement and aggregate, shape and size of the member under consideration. Hence it is
difficult to predict creep and shrinkage. However, a lot of analytical models based on
collection of laboratory experimental data and real life service behaviour of concrete
structures have been developed over the last three decades. A list of available analytical
models to predict both creep and shrinkage is presented in table 1.
A detailed explanation of all models is beyond the scope of this write-up and interested
readers can refer to [4], [8], [7] and [6]. However, the B3 model will be briefly presented to
reveal how to obtain the creep and shrinkage strain in a column segment undergoing
shortening.
B3 Model
Analytical shrinkage model
The average strain across the column section due to shrinkage can be obtained from:
sh ( , d )= sn k h S ( ) 106

0.28

sn = 1 2 ( 0.091 w2.1 ( f cm )

S ( )=tanh

0.08

0.25

sh=0.085 d ( f cm )

+270 )

Ec (7 +600 )
E c ( d + sh)

d
sh
2

( [ ])
Ks 2

V
S

(3)

Analytical creep model

The average creep strain across the column segment can be obtained by from:
cr ( t ) =

J ( , o ) 0
e (t )

J ( , o )=

cr ( t ) = ( , o ) e ( t )

or

127
+C o ( , o ) +C d ( , o , d )
f cm

( , o ) =Ec ( o ) J ( , o ) 1
1
2

0.9

C o ( , o )=185.4 c ( f cm )

1
2

Q ( , o ) +53.766 ( w/ c ) c ( f cm )0.9

ln {1+ ( o ) n }+20.3 ( a/c )0.7 ln ( / o )

2
9

Q ( , o ) = 0.086 ( o ) + 1.21 ( o )

[(

1+

4 1
9

( o)

0.5

)]

4 1 r ( o )
9

[ 0.086 ( ) +1.21 ( ) ]
2
9

ln { 1+ ( o ) 0.1 }

1/ r ( o)

r ( o ) =1.7 ( o )0.12+ 8
8 H ( o )

C d ( , o , d )=7.57 10 5 ( f cm ) sn0.6 e8 H ()e

1

H ( )=[ 1 (1h ) S ( ) ]

Conclusions

(4)

Tall buildings are beginning to appear in Nigerias megacities. It is common practice in

Nigeria to neglect the effect of creep and shrinkage on reinforced concrete columns in
building design. This is pragmatically acceptable for low mid-rise buildings which make up
a major stock of reinforced concrete buildings in Nigeria and there is no need for a revision to
that. However, as concrete buildings begin to go taller the time dependent effect of creep and
shrinkage should not be neglected. To this effect, the deformation of reinforced concrete
columns in tall buildings as a result of instantaneous shortening and time dependent
shortening due to creep and shrinkage were discussed. Analytical models available in
literature were listed to present engineers with the various options available to them. The B3
model was presented in detail because of its versatility and ability to incorporate Nigerian
environmental conditions which deters the application of most of the other afore-listed
models. Application method of the model was also discussed.

References
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