Things to consider when building gymnasium on ground floor 1

[b42mrw]

Hi

I am posting this general question in relation to a Community Center Project that is in the early design stage. I am hoping someone will be able to give general guidelines or things to consider.

would there be any issues with having a basement beneath a gymnasium. Basement will contain general purpose rooms eg. classrooms, kitchen & lunchroom etc..

- Is it a good idea to have a gym on the ground floor with a basement floor? Does someone have experience in this type of situation?
- We are concerned about wear & tear over the years, What if any additional structural re-enforcement can be considered?

Length = 62ft
Width = 42ft
Use = Basketball, soccer, badminton, table tennis etc..
+ multi-purpose, maybe dinner functions with seating for 200-300

Thank you for reading, any comments are gladly welcomed.

Regards
Z

 

[DaveAtkins]

Assuming you will be using concrete topping on a steel framed floor system, the main concern will be vibration. You can use the AISC Design Guide to check it.

DaveAtkins

 

[structSU10]

I agree with Dave, vibration is the main concern. The columns need to be considered for this sitation when it come to natural frequency of the floor, as I have heard of multi story buildings responding to gym activity on an upper floor.Someone else may also be concerned about noise as well, but that shouldnt fall on structural.

 

[JAE]

I would use cast-in-place concrete for any suspended gym floor - more mass = less vibration issues.

 

[JedClampett]

I would be worried about noise transmitting to the rooms below. I csn just imagine the basketball team having dribbling drills and someone trying to rehearse Shakespere in the rooms below.
I agree that this isn't a structural issue, but it seems that every problem ends up on my desk. But when the awards are given out, I'm never invited.

 

[StructSEZ]

"I would use cast-in-place concrete for any suspended gym floor - more mass = less vibration issues."

Not quite right. The vibrations only stabilise when the frequency causing excitement (imposed cyclic load) because equal to the structure's natural frequency. So what you want to do is, make the natural frequency as high as practical/economical.
Now, w=sqrt(k/m) where w is the natural frequency in radians per second, k is global stiffness of the structure and m is the mass (generally taken 'lumped' at the level of the floor/element being considered).
From the above then, you can see that if the mass increases, the natural frequency decreases. This then increases the risk of the frequency cyclic load imposed by people running, jumping or whatever else, reaching the natural frequency of the structure.
That's the theory out of the way...

Worked on something similar in the past. What you want to do is put a hardener on your concrete's topping/screed to deal with the wear and tear.
Having a basement isn't a problem, you should be able to suspend the gym quite happily. In my case, it wasn't really a basement, more of a very large compartment built onto the raft to store rain water for irrigation etc...nevertheless, it was suspended.
I'm assuming the 42 feet are the clear spans, so you'll most likely be going for steel. Do NOT go for prestress as it tends to bounce a bit under people moving around. I was lucky (I think) enough to experience it while visiting some friends in South Africa. We went to an indoor soccer place which had been built using prestressed slabs. It almost felt like being on a boat...

 

[dcarr82775]

StructSEZ,

I find the additional mass helps because you have to get a large enough forcing function to excite that mass.

 

[shobroco]

Many years ago, I went to a highschool with the cafeteria & kitchen under the gymnasium. As a matter of fact, my father built the building about 2 years before I went there. The floor was wood: hardwood finish on heavy timber deck on glulam beams, somewhat bigger than what is discussed here; I think about 50'X80'. It was a beautiful gym for sports, particularly basketball, and it is still serving well; it was built in 1971 and I was there last fall for another project & I had a look at it. The biggest drawback is the noise downstairs, however in a wood floor assembly that can be dealt with too; it was not a concern at the school because the uses did not conflict.