Final Year Proposal

JOMO KENYATTA UNIVERSITYOFAGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY

Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Department

FINAL YEAR PROJECT PROPOSAL

TITLE:

INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTS OF USING RECYCLED POLYPROPYLENE HOLLOW BLOCKS IN FLAT SLABS

BY:

BRIAN MURIITHI KARIUKI

REG. NO: EN272-0594/11

SUPERVISOR:

MR. MULU

2014

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the award of Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering

CHAPTER ONE

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INTRODUCTION

1.1 GENERAL

Over the years, building and construction industry has remained the most vibrant and dynamic industry to achieving growth and development in the world. Good and efficient housing has been the desire and pride for every individual in our societies. However, the cost of doing buildings and construction has been on the increase day by day for many developing nations given by inadequate and low production of the construction materials. In Kenya, for this matter, the growing rate of population increase has put a lot of pressure in land use and consequently shooting up the demand for better and cheap structures.

Structures are generally constructed to carry some form of loading. The self weight of the structure itself is one of the major loads that the structure should be designed and constructed to bear. In buildings, the horizontal members (slabs and beams) constitute a great portion of the structure self weight. Reinforced concrete slabs are used in floors, roofs and walls of buildings. Reinforced concrete beams are mainly used to support the slabs. Slabs may span in one direction or in two directions and they may be supported on monolithic concrete beam, steel beams, walls or directly by the structure’s columns. Slabs may be solid, ribbed precast or in-situ (span in two-ways). The choice of slabs in practice is dependent on economy, ease of construction length of span and the loading conditions. For short spans that are generally less than 5m the most economical solution is to use a solid slab of...