Evaluation of structural systems for industrial dairy farming facilities

Abstract

This paper presents the assessment of conventional structural systems used for industrial dairy farming focusing on the cost and energy consumption. Various structural forms for industrial dairy farming were investigated considering dozen of structural models and materials. Eleven different structural systems were compared in terms of cost and energy consumption. Steel girders, steel columns, glued-laminated timber, reinforced concrete (RC) columns and steel trusses were used in this research as the structural components and materials. The SAP2000 software was used for the analysis of the modeled structures. The obtained results of the analyses demonstrated that the use of RC members or prefabricated concrete components is economically advantageous, while the use of glued-laminated timber was the least economical alternative. The highest cost was observed for a structural model fabricated with a conventional Gable steel frame and the lowest cost was observed for a structural model made of a 2-span twin mono-pitch Portal frames constructed with prefabricated RC beams and columns. However, the lowest energy consumption was observed for a structural model constructed with a single-span twin mono-pitch Portal frames constructed with RC columns and glued-laminated timber beams and the highest energy consumption was observed for the structural model fabricated with a conventional Gable steel frame, which had the highest cost.