Live load for a bank vault

[WWTEng]

Regular type of vault (no gold bars etc), for typical safe deposit box use. Seems like heavy storage 250 psf should be adequate but if anyone has experience with specifying a load for this condition, I would love to hear it.

Thank you

 

[PT999]

A project I am familiar with is using 8" thick, #6 @ 12" ea way, for a slab on grade. I believe this is a banking industry requirement to make it difficult to tunnel into it. The rest of the bank building floor slab (SOG) is 4" thick with WWR

 

[WWTEng]

PT, the vault is on elevated slab (precast planks), hence a bigger headache.

 

[MiketheEngineer]

Do a little research and find out what loads are expected....

 

[WWTEng]

Mike, I did the research. The vault guy is recommending 500, says the lowest he has seen is 350 psf.

 

[msquared48]

Usually, for a bank vault, three layers of reinforcing are required, with all layers staggered from the next producing a real small grid.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[TLHS]

I'm actually a little surprised. Banks tend to be big companies with lots of branches. Unless it's a little credit union, or something, I'd have expected them to have a design standard.

 

[msquared48]

The vault reinforcing pattern and wall thickness is usually more security driven than load driven.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[bridgebuster]

There was a thread a few weeks ago on bank vaults:

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=334418;

some one mentioned that ASTM F1090 & F1247 discuss vault design. I looked at both specs but they don't mention live load but they do discuss thie multiple layers of reinforcement.