Comparative analysis between reinforced concrete sill plate and prestressed concrete sill plate, equating construction costs for a residential development

Abstract

The area of civil construction is responsible for developing new construction methods, with more efficient and economical technologies. The prestressed concrete sill plate is an example of engineering evolution when it comes to shallow foundation. The lack of planning in civil works can cause a number of problems and even overburden the work budget, especially in the case of sill plate execution service. For the accomplishment of this work, the case study methodology was used in a construction of a residential development located in the city of Manaus. Besides pointing out the economy consolidated by the project after adopting the new construction method based on economic feasibility studies, this quantitative work aims to compare two types of surface foundation: prestressed concrete and reinforced concrete sill plate. The prestressed sill plate, no matter how much it requires skilled labor to perform, allows for a significant reduction in one of the heaviest items in a budget spreadsheet: concrete. Thus, it can be observed through the analysis that the prestressed concrete sill plate method is the most viable for the construction company because it presents cost reduction and improvements in the ability to resist the loading of structures.