Roof

Maintainability Scoring System for Reinforced Concrete Flat Roof

Authors: Sutapa Das, M.Y.L. Chew

Source: CIRAIC 2007: 1st Construction Industry Research Achievement International Conference, 2007, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, pp. 150-160.

Abstract:

Flat roofs are the most vulnerable part of the building envelope due to the direct exposure to weathering conditions especially in tropical climate. Early detection of defects is very hard to achieve as such roofs are either inaccessible or subjected to usage that camouflage the signs of deterioration. Hence the potential defects should be assessed and taken care of in the design phase along with a planned maintenance scheduled to minimize their occurrence and effect. A detailed case study of 21 buildings in Singapore identified five major defects related to 27 design factors for four types of flat roof. A maintainability scoring system (MSS) was developed to benchmark good design, construction and maintenance parameters which are defined by scoring criteria grouped into general selection of roofing system and other construction components. They were graded on a scale of one to five based on local codes and standards. A higher score denotes higher maintainability. A hypothetical roof was tested to validate the model. It was found that MSS could predict the maintainability potential of a proposed roofing scheme and also works as a benchmarking checklist for design guidelines and good industry practices.

Keywords: Benchmarking, Defects, Flat roof, Maintainability, Scoring system