Welcome to Nicholas Reed's AE Senior Thesis Website

The Capstone Project Electronic Portfolio (CPEP) is a web‐based project and information center. It contains material produced for a year‐long Senior Thesis class. Its purpose, in addition to providing central storage of individual assignments, is to foster communication and collaboration between student, faculty consultant, course instructors, and industry consultants. This website is dedicated to the research and analysis conducted via guidelines provided by the Department of Architectural Engineering. For an explanation of this capstone design course and its requirements click here.

Proposal

The structural depth of this thesis will be to redesign the SAC Hotel Addition's structural system with a staggered truss system on precast concrete planks acting as the gravity and lateral system. Two different types of lateral framing are used in the SAC Hotel: braced frames in the N-S direction and perimeter moment frames in the E-W direction. The staggered trusses will replace the braced frames. Precast concrete planks and truss members will affect the overall weight of the building, which will potentially require a foundation redesign.

To view a PDF of the proposal, click here

To view a PDF of the revised proposal (January 11, 2013), click here

To view a PDF of the final proposal revision as of March 21st, 2013, click here
(Revised pages include: problem statement, breadth descriptions, task & tools, and conclusion)

Breadth Topic 1

While the repetive nature of the SAC Hotel's floor plans makes the use of staggered trusses possible, the exact layout of the rooms may be impacted by locations of the trusses per floor. The first breadth will be an architectural analysis of hotel room layouts around truss locations, as well as a potential impact on building geometry based around the best possible layout of trusses per floor.

Breadth Topic 2

With the truss system and use of precast concrete planks, the construction process will only require time for concrete to cure during foundation construction. The gravity and lateral system of the SAC Hotel will be completely comprised of "dry" members, and will ease the erection process. Breadth two will focus on a site plan to communicate the flow of construction over time as well as researching and choosing an appropriate crane size to lift and place the new members.