The Swedish legislation for structural design of buildings, Boverket’s Design Regulations (BKR 13), expired on 1 January 2011 in conjunction with the implementation of the Eurocodes (European Construction Standards) together with the national choices in the Boverket Series of Provision on the Application of European Construction Standards (EKS). Since then EKS has been revised three times with the latest version EKS 10 being implemented on 1 January 2016. These progressive changes in the design regulations have particularly resulted in increased dimensions for the roof grid due to higher requirements, not at least for form factors, wind loads and snow loads. This in turn affects other building components since the loads from the roof structure need to be led down to the foundation. Because agricultural buildings are characterized by low-rise ceilings (15 - 30°) with large span they are particularly sensitive to these changes in the design regulations.
The current problem in agricultural building construction is the existence of a knowledge gap where not all stakeholders have grasped the practical significance of the changes in the regulations for the construction of agricultural buildings. Hence, the objectives of this research project are to partly contribute to a more transparent market economy by providing all stakeholders in the construction- and agriculture sector with better insights into the practical implications of the progressive changes in the design regulations. Partly provide the business community with better basis for decision-making in developing their product range for customers and be better prepared for future changes in the design regulations. Partly contribute with enhanced development in the academic sphere (including SLU) and the opportunity to translate the new knowledge into education with the purpose of equipping students with relevant skills for today's labour market in the field of agriculture.
The project will be implemented with Abetong supplying the project with two agricultural buildings that represent about 90% of all agricultural buildings built in Sweden and ensure that these are dimensioned according to current regulations. After that, SLU (Hussein Agha) will dimension respective agricultural building according to the different versions of the design regulations all the way back to BKR 13 from 1 January 2011. Additional dimensioning will also be made with regard to different zones of snow- and wind loads to produce representative knowledge that covers the whole of Sweden. Finally, all results will be analysed to illustrate how much the dimensions of the roof grid have increased due to changes in the design regulations.
The project is funded by: Partnerskap Alnarp, Abetong and SLU
Duration of the project: 01.04.2018 – 31.12.2018
Project Leader: Hussein Agha
Other contributors: Knut-Håkan Jeppsson and Torsten Hörndahl
Subject area: Structural design, building technology and agricultural sciences