Minimising embodied carbon in reinforced concrete flat slabs through parametric design

Minimising carbon emissions from the building construction industry is of paramount importance in present context due to rising concerns climate change. This paper explores potential minimising embodied reinforced concrete flat slabs by parametrically varying slab thickness, grade concrete, column spacing, size, and reinforcement details. A parametric design algorithm was developed generate a range one storey structural frames with calculate their ‘cradle-to-gate’ per unit floor area while identifying viable space relevant limiting criteria. Also, finite element model parallelly estimate non-linear long-term deflection investigate possibility further reducing scrutinising related limits. The effect on optimum designs adopted coefficients also quantified. minimum for given load spacing corresponds allowable largely insensitive coefficients. Relaxing limit can reduce but only around 20% required percentage increase deflection. providing more depths allowed criteria sensitive require optimising using lower grades depth based checks.