The Rubenstein Commons is a two-story precast concrete structure with a partial basement located in Princeton, NJ on the Institute for Advanced Study campus. The building space will have multiple uses and functions, however it will be primarily used for collaboration and convening of academic thought and activities by the IAS community. As the precast specialty engineer, TD&H’s role was to detail the precast elements and connections per the architectural, structural and steel fabrication drawings. TD&H’s responsibility in this project included calculations for panel lifting, erecting, and temporary bracing. TD&H provided erection drawings and shop fabrication tickets with the use of Tekla Precast Concrete Design software.
The primary lateral force resisting system designed by the engineer-of-record (EOR) utilizes the precast concrete shear walls to support the roof and floor diaphragm along with the steel framing. The walls are comprised of 10” thick solid precast concrete with, in most cases, double mat reinforcing steel in the horizontal and vertical direction. The engineer of record designed the precast concrete walls and foundations. These elements were connected with NMB Splice Sleeves® at the horizontal panel joints (panel-to-foundation & panel-to-panel). The vertical panel joints (panel-to-panel) used double zap screw locks which were mechanical rebar splices.
Tekla Precast Design software was used by TD&H Engineering to model the wall elements and their connections with the steel framing and foundations. The building information model (BIM) was created from PDF drawings and additional information gathered from RFI’s and other coordination methods. Every piece of reinforcing bar and steel embed plate was detailed in the Tekla model. This was then shared with the general contractor who incorporated the precast Tekla model with the steel Tekla model to achieve seamless integration. The co-coordination of the steel and precast manufacturer and their use of Tekla alleviated potential field issues and mis-aligned connections.
