software + TECH
Building a strong foundation Modeling lays the groundwork for a successful hospital project in Orlando. By Amr M. Sallam, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE
In the budget-driven and time-sensitive health care industry, reduc- ing the project delivery schedule can produce significant cost savings and make these critical facilities available to the public sooner. The recently constructed Florida Hospital for Women in Orlando, Fla., demonstrates how collaboration between the owner, key design part- ners, and construction team can open opportunities for unique design and construction solutions while also expediting construction. In the case of this project, the relationships and communication between the project leaders led to a final project design saving the client more than $1 million and allowed the facility to open two months earlier to begin serving the community. The new Florida Hospital for Women facility, a 12-story, 430,000-square-foot tower, has 322 beds with three floors of 108-bed capacity reserved as shell space. Opened in January 2016, the facility has 14 labor and delivery suites, 13 operating rooms for obstetric and women’s services, 12 postpartum care beds, mother-baby beds, and high-risk beds. The operating rooms accommodate DaVinci Surgical System equipment for robotic minimally invasive surgery. Structural engineering design A cast-in-place, conventionally reinforced 12-inch concrete flat plate was selected as the primary structural framing system. An alternate structural floor and roof system proposed was a 27-inch-wide module joist system. Level 2, where the operating rooms are located, required a 24-inch-deep joist and beam system to meet the strict vibration criteria for micro-surgery operating rooms. Regarding column design, specifying a higher strength steel for the larger bars eased congestion and saved placement costs by reducing the required number of bars. A “blade” shear wall was required at the south end of the building to supplement the stair and elevator cores to maintain torsional rotation within allowable limits. An elevated pedes- trian bridge connecting the new hospital to the New Bedford Tower on the south end and a one-story connector along the south elevation of the existing children’s hospital were also added.
An iterative structural design was used to determine the least cost mat by varying concrete strength and mat thickness. Specifying a higher strength steel for the larger bars in the columns eased congestion and saved placement costs by reducing the required number of bars.
The new facility is situated on a tight urban site. It is bordered by a busy rail line on the west, an existing 40-year-old hospital building on the north (Andersen Wing), a 10-year-old children's tower on the northeast corner, a public street on the south, and the main hospital en- trance on the east. These active adjacent structures and connections to the new facility between the existing site buildings and features added significant complexity to design and construction. The hospital’s proximity to the rail line resulted in the need for the train-induced vibration to be considered in the design. Patient rooms and operating rooms needed to meet vibration guidelines for design and construction of health care facilities. A base isolation system was initially proposed to isolate the building from train-induced vibrations, but this was cost prohibitive. However, subsequent analysis showed that the 12-inch flat slab was sufficient to damp out transient vibrations for all conditions except the Level-2 operating rooms. These areas of the structure were stiffened to meet the more stringent requirements for micro-surgery. At the areas where the new hospital connects to the existing Andersen Wing at the ground and second levels, the new floor slab was designed with a recess to be leveled with the Andersen building after initial mat settlement to assure a smooth transition between the two structures.
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csengineermag.com
august 2018
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