A Novel Integrated Approach to Solve Industrial Ground Floor Design Problems

The ground floors of buildings usually have high loads from racks and other storage equipment in industrial buildings and logistics centers. Such types of buildings commonly require lift trucks. Therefore, there are special requirements for flatness tolerance across and along the driving track of truck lifts. Structural design solutions must be optimized and sustainable. The article reviews the behavior of soils and the importance of the actual behavior assessment of soils during the design of the ground floor on the elastic subgrade. The behavior of the ground floor’s areas above pile foundations that support the building’s columns is essential. Calculation results show the impact of subgrade stiffness on the behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) floor slab, especially in areas above pile foundations, where the stiffness of subgrade is much higher. The research provides a solution to achieve the required level of settlement dissimilarity in areas where there are piles underneath a building slab under the columns. The paper proposes a new integrated method for the evaluation of the subgrade reaction coefficient above the pile cap. The proposed method optimizes design time and eliminates the need for specialized geotechnical software. Obtained results confirmed the efficiency of the proposed design method.