Reference Book for Swiming Pool Design 2

[chencfp]

I will design a standard olymipc size swiming pool. Could someone please give some reference books for swiming pool design? Thank.

 

[RWF7437]

For the dimensions of the pool you may find the following reference useful:

Urban Planning and Design Criteria, De Chiara and Koppelman.

Also, there is an international olympic swimming organization. Do a Google search on the web to find it.

For structural and construction details you can probably get much information from local pool builders and from visits to actual pools built recently in your area. Ask the owners how the pools have held up and get copies of their plans if they are willing to share them with you.

Good luck

 

[RWF7437]

http://www.usoc.org/

 

[PEinc]

It would seem to me that if you don't know of any good swimming pool design reference books, you probably are not experienced enough or qualified to design the pool. I suggest you team with an experienced pool designer. It could make for a more successful project. I would not want my Olympic sized pool to be designed by a novice in that field.

 

[JAE]

This brings up a question - we've designed a number of pools over the years based on various books and solid engineering talent. However, we seem to be facing a condition (in the midwest USA) where pool "builders" show up and want to down-size our designs.

We design for a number of load conditions, including empty pool, full pool, partial full pool...all with and without a high water table around the tank. In most cases, we end up with a very good design, I think, and one that allows the owner the ability to drain the pool under most conditions.

But these pool builders claim that we overdesign our tanks - they use an 8" or 6" thick wall, reinforced with a single layer of reinforcing. We cannot get these sections to work with our own calcs. They claim that they've never had any problems. - But I suspect they do ...just don't advertise the cracking that results and they assume that the pool is always full so there is no real differential loading on the walls.

Any thoughts?

 

[tllamz]

A piped "drainfield" can be laid around the bottom of the pool and a few pumps used to dewater the area around the pool when the pool is emptied for service. Hydrostatic releif valves should be incorporated in the pool main drain sump area or on the bottom of the pool shell that will open and allow ground water to enter if the power fails (to prevent the pool from "popping" or floating up on the groundwater -- I have seem pool bottoms actually break up due to the hyrdrostatic force). Just keeping the pool full or allowing the ground water to come in during closures may also be an option (you may need to employ some circulation to prevent freezing). Dewatering too much may influence the stability of ground foundations nearby -- you may need to create a recharge trench between the pool and nearby structures.

 

[SperlingPE]

I was the engineer on a community recreation center. The design called for a indoor swimming pool. The architect hired the design out to a pool contractor who hired an engineer. I suggested to the architect that he ought to require calculations for the pool design. I did not get to see the calculations, but I did get to see some of the installation. 8" thick concrete with one layer of reinforcing steel. It was a shallow entry pool, but it got up to 12' deep at the diving area.

 

[Lutfi]

JAE,

Your comments are on target. I agree with you.

Contractors always accuse engineers of over designing. Actually, I was involved in a case were the contactor wanted to sue me because my beams were stressed to 60% of their capacity. He claimed that was over designed! Go figure.

Regards,