Bachelor (Hons) of Civil

Engineering
Design of Reinforced Concrete Structures I

Design of Slab

Prepared by Ir. Pan Wang Fook, P.Eng, MIEM

Email: wfpan@segi.edu.my
 Introduction

• Reinforced concrete slabs are used in floors, roofs and

walls of buildings and as the deck of bridges
• The floor system of a structure can take many forms
such as in situ solid slabs, ribbed slabs or precast units
• Slabs may span in one direction or in two direction and
they may be supported on monolithic concrete beams,
steel beams, walls or directly by structure’s column
• Continuous slabs should in principle be designed to
withstand the most unfavourable arrangement of loads in
the manner as beams

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 Introduction

• Bending moment coefficients may be used for one way

slab
• These coefficients are comparable to those in continuous
beams and are based on UK experience
• If these coefficients are used the reinforcement must be
of ductility class B or C and the neutral axis depth, x,
should be no greater than 0.25 of the effective depth
such that the lever arm, z = d – 0.8x/2, is not less than
0.9d to allow for the moment redistribution incorporated
in the values given, normally up to 20%.

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 Introduction

• The coefficient can be used when they are at least three

spans that do not differ in length more than 15% and Qk
should be less than or equal to 1.25Gk and also less than
5 kN/m2
• The moments in slabs spanning in two direction can also
be determined using tabulated coefficients
• Slab which are not rectangular in plan or which support
an irregular loading arrangement may be analysed by
yield line method or the Hilleborg strip method

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 Introduction

• Concrete slabs are defined as members where the

breadth is not less than 5 times the overall depth and
behave primarily as flexural members with the design
similar to that for beams
• In general, the design of slab is simpler:
1. The breadth of the slab is already fixed as 1000 mm
2. The shear stresses are usually low in a slab except
when there are heavy concentrated loads
3. Compression reinforcement is seldom required

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 Table 1 Ultimate bending moment and shear
force coefficients in one way slab

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 Shear in slabs

• The shear resistance of a solid slab may be calculated by the

procedure given in shear chapter
• Experiment work has indicated that compared with beams, shallow
slabs fail at slightly higher shear stresses and this is incorporated
into the values of the ultimate concrete shear resistance, VRd,c
• Calculations are usually based on a strip of slab 1000 mm wide
• Since shear stresses in slabs subject to uniformly distributed loads
are generally small, shear reinforcement will seldom be required
and it would be usual to design the slan such that the design
ultimate shear force

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 Table 2 Shear force of slabs without shear
reinforcement vRd.c (C30/37)

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 Table 3 Modification factor

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 Span effective depth ratios

• Excessive deflections of slabs will cause damage to the

ceiling, floor finishes, or other architectural finishes
• To avoid this, limits are set on the span-depth ratio

• These limits are exactly the same as those for beams as

described in beam design

• As a slab is usually a slender member, the restrictions on

the span-effective depth ratio become more important

and this can often control the depth of slabrequired in
terms os the slab-effective depth ratio, the depth of slab
is given by
d = span / (basic ratio x correction factor)

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 Span effective depth ratios

• The correction factors account for slab tyoe and support

condition as well as cases of span greater than 7 m and
for flat slabs greater than 8.5 m
• The basic ratio may be corrected to account for grades
of steel other thn grade 500 and for when more
reinforcement is provided than that required for design at
ultimate limit state.
• Initial values of basic ratio may be obtained from tables
but these are concrete strength dependent
• It may normally be assumed that, In using such tables,
slabs are lightly stressed.

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 Span effective depth ratios

• It can be seen that the basic rati can be increased by

reducing the stress condition in the concrete
• The concrete stress may be reduced by providing an
area of tensile reinforcement greater than that of
required to resist the design moment up to a maximum
of 1.5x that required
• For two way spanning slabs, the check on the span
effective ratio should be based on the shorter span
length
• For flat slabs, the longer span should be checked

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 Reinforcement details

• Minimum areas of reinforcement = 0.26fctmbd/fyk ≥

0.0013bd in both direction
• Secondary transverse reinforcement should not be less
than 20% of the minimum main reinforcement
requirement in one way slab
• Maximum areas of longitudinal and transverse
reinforcement = 0.04Ac
• For slab thickness less than 200 mm, bar spacing should
not exceed three times the overall depth of slab or 400
mm which ever is lesser for main reinforcement.

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 Reinforcement details

• For secondary reinforcement, the bar spacing should

not exceed 3.5h or 450 mm
• In areas of concentrated load or maximum moment,
these values are reduced to 2h ≤ 250 mm and 3h ≤ 400
mm respectively.

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 Solid slabs spanning in one direction

• The slabs are designed as if they consist of a series of

beams of 1 m breadth
• The main steel is in the direction of the span and
secondary or distribution steel is required in the
transverse direction
• The main steel should form the outer layer of
reinforcement to give transverse direction lever arm
• The calculations for bending reinforcement follow a
similar procedure to that used in beam design

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 Solid slabs spanning in one direction

• As = M/(0.87fykz)
• for solid slabs spanning one way, the simplified rules for
curtailing bars as shown in Figure 1 may be used
provided that the loads are uniformly distributed
• Wit a continuous slab, it is also necessary that the spans
are approximately equal
• These simplified rules are not given in EC2 but are
recommended on the basis of proven satisfactory
performance established in previous codes of practice.

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 Figure 1

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 Solid slabs spanning in two direction

• When a slab is supported on all four of its sides it

effectively spans in both directions, and it is sometimes
more economical to design the slab on this basis
• The amount of bending in each direction will depend on
the ratio of the two spans and the conditions of restraint
at each support
• If the slabs is square and the restraints are similar along
the four sides then the load will span equally in both
direction
• If the slabs rectangular then more than one half of the
load will be carried in the stiffer, shorter direction and
less in the longer direction

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 Solid slabs spanning in twp direction

• Moments in each direction of span are generally

calculated using tabulated coefficients
• Areas of reinforcement to resist the moments are
determined independently for each direction of span
• The slab is reinforced with bars in both direction parallel
to the spans with the steel for the shorter span placed
furthest from the neutral axis to give it the greater
effective depth
• The span effective depth ratios are based on the shorter
span and the percentage of reinforcement in that
direction

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 Figure 2

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 Simply supported slab spanning in two
direction
• A slab simply supported on its four sides will deflect
about both axes under load and the corners will tend to
lift and curl up from the supports, causing torsional
moments
• When no provision has been made to prevent this lfiting

or to resist the torsion then the moment coefficients of

Table 3 may be used
• The maximum moments

Msx = αsxnlx2 in direction of san lx

Msy = synlx2 in direction ly

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 Table 3

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 Simply supported slab spanning in two
direction

• The area of reinforcement in direction of lx and ly are

Asx = Msx/(0.87fykz) per meter width
Asy = Msy /(0.87fykz) per meter width
• The effective depth d used in calculating Asy should be
less than that for Asx because of the different depths of
the two layers of reinforcement
• Established practice suggests that at least 40% of the
mid-span reinforcement should be extend to the
supports and the remaining 60% should extend to within
0.1lx and 0.1ly of the approximate support.

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 Restrained slab spanning in two directions

• When the slabs have fixity at the supports and

reinforcement is added to resist torsion and to prevent
the corners of the slab from lifting then the maximum
moments per unit width are given by
• Msx = βsxnlx2 in the direction of lx
• Msx = βsxnlx2 in the direction of lx
• Msy = βsynlx2 in the direction of ly
• The slab is divided into middle and edge strips as
shown in Figure 2 and reinforcement is required in the
middle strips to resist Msx and Msy

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 Table 3

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 Figure 2

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 Restrained slab spanning in two directions

• In the edge strips only moment reinforcement is

necessary such that As/bd = 0.26fctm/fyk > 0.0013bd
• In addition, torsion reinforcement is provided as
discontinuous corners and it should
1. Consist of top and bottom mats, each having bars in both direction
of span
2. Extend from the edges a minimum distance of lx/5
3. At a corner where the slab is discontinuous in both direction have
an area of steel in each of the four layers equal to three quarters of
the area for the maximum mid-span moment
4. At a corner where the slab is discontinuous in one direction only,
have an area of torsion reinforcement only half of that specified In
rule 3

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 Reference
Mosley, B., Bungey, J., Hulse, R (2012) Reinforced
Concrete Design to Eurocode 7 7th Edition, Palgrave
Macmillan
Beeby, A.W., Narayanan, R.S (2005) Designers’ guide to
Eurocode 2: Design of concrete structures Thomas
Telford

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