With regard to the structural design for a new high-bay warehouse in Liechtenstein, there are some exciting aspects in the implementation of the planning specifications.Earthquakes, for example, are an important topic that needs to be considered. In Liechtenstein – in contrast to Vienna (and the main part of Austria) – a significantly higher ground acceleration is to be assumed, which leads to greater earthquake loads. This needs to be looked at closely in the context of the joints between the 3 warehouses, as seismic joints must not bang together when the individual warehouses deform (pounding).

Regarding the use of the warehouse, so-called stacker cranes are used. These are specially designed and approved lifting systems which, in connection with their design and the height of the warehouse, can also only compensate for small deformations. Therefore, the rigidity of the warehouse in connection with the wind load must be analyzed accordingly.Furthermore, a so-called quasi-rigid base plate is usually required, i.e. the base plate must be designed with very little deformation, so that there are no major constraints on the steel construction. In the present case, this aspect was abandoned and the maximum deformation of the base plate was fixed at 10 mm. At first glance, this does not look like much, but for our warehouse, which was pre-dimensioned with a quasi-rigid base plate, this means a considerable (negative) force influence on the system. This is a challenging project for us, since many aspects, in particular the different rigidity effects in connection with constraints, can lead to very different results.