Swimming Pool Design

[ag89]

I was looking for reference material for the design of a commercial swimming pool. I have very little experience in this, mostly trying to relate it to cooling tower basin design. This installation, I believe will be in an area with expansive clays. My contact mentioned putting the pool on piers. I guess supporting the pool from piers seems like a tall order, I would expect that would require a lot of piers. The pool depth will be from 3 to 10' deep. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[LPPE]

Design it as a large concrete water-holding tank. You say it is a commercial swimming pool, so I'd imagine you cannot do it all in one pour. The trick then becomes how do you make leak-proof construction joints? I still haven't seen a detail that works, so I'd like to know.

If you put the pool on piles, then you need a pile cap to resist punching shear. I would then design conc. beams spanning from one pile cap to the next, and then design your pool walls to span between conc. beams.

High strength conc. may also be a good idea.

 

[ishvaaag]

Make an advanced search in altavista. I there found the link

http://handyhand.

http://www1.50megs.com/pools.html

that must open to many other related sites.

 

[ag89]

I am still having concerns about the load on the "slab" spanning between the piles or the conc beams spanning between the piles. At the 10' deep end the water pressure on the bottom is 624#/sf. This is quite high for the piles and the slabs.

 

[LPPE]

How close can you space the piles? A 20 ton timber pile gets you about an 8' o.c. spacing. If you can then span beams between each pile (8' tributary area @ 624+ psf shouldn't be that bad), then your pool "slab" may be designed as a two-way slab. Also, epoxy coated rebar might be a good idea.

One other thing to check - where's your ground water elevation? If you have high ground water, and your pool is empty during the early spring months, you must check uplift.

Also, perhaps you may be permitted to use a live load reduction? I'm not sure what the code says about water as a live load, if anything. Anyone have any comments on that?

 

[ag89]

I guess installing piles 8' on centers may be required depending on the soils report. Another concern is expansive soils. Would void forms be a possibility if the entire slab is supported on the piles. I have used this on larger foudnations, pile caps, etc. I would expect if the expansive soils were not allowed to expand under the slab, cracking could be a problem.

 

best to keep piles at close spacing, thereby less deflection in base slab/ smaller 'crack widths' to contend with.

follow design for watertight consruction.

design steel as simply supported between piles, add 25%, you'll have a stiff section that will deal with any failing if any of the piles settle more than others.

loading uniform - piles/slab should find their equilibrium.

curing important - quality of workmanship etc.

design elements simply supported, e.g tank structure. ease of construction try to use double layers of mesh each face for walls/slabs. L & U bars for connections.