Reinforced Concrete Slab Design

Reinforced concrete slabs span either one-way or two-way, depending upon their
support conditions.
1) A one-way slab spans between parallel line supports such as walls or beams. At
every point the axis of bending is parallel to the supports. One-way slabs are essentially
wide beams and are designed following the same principles that apply to any beam.
2) A two-way slab spans in two directions and bends about two the axes. The
orientation of the principle axes of bending change throughout the slab. There are many
variations of two-way slabs, three of which are shown in Fig. 5.1. Two-way slabs are
highly statically indeterminate structures and a detailed prediction of their behavior
requires complex analysis. Traditionally two basic methods have been used to design the
vast majority of two-way slabs, the Direct Design Procedure and the Equivalent Frame
Method. Both of these procedures are detailed in Clause 13 of the CSA A23.3 Standard.
More recently, the advent of user friendly finite element analysis (FEA) programs have
allowed designers to design slab geometries that fall outside the limitations of the Direct
Design and Equivalent Frame analysis procedures.
Figure 1 below depicts the characteristic deflected shape of a two-way slab.

Figure 1
With the availability of slab design program such as PCASLAB, the use of the
Direct Design Method has declined dramatically. More detailed analysis results can be

obtain in less time that can be generated from a manual analysis using the Direct Design
procedure. As a result the Equivalent Frame method of analysis is the highly preferred
method of choice when it comes to designing slabs.
The design of any slab system may be divided into the following steps:
Step 1 - select slab thickness
Step 2 - obtain design moments
Step 3 - choose flexural reinforcement
Step 4 - check shear capacity, and
Step 5 - design beams and/or other elements (if any)
Slab Thickness:
As the slabs in a building will comprise a high percentage of the overall mass of the
structure, the selection of slab thickness should be made carefully. The slab thickness will
generally be driven by deflection limits and punching shear at the supports. The success
or failure of a slab design is almost always judged on the basis of serviceability. The
minimum thickness for one-way slabs without the need to compute deflections, is given
in Table 9-2 of the A23.3 Standard. Clause 13.2 contains provisions for the minimum
thickness of regular two-way slab systems as defined in Clause 2.2.
Slab Design Moments:
The design moments at supports and at mid span are determined from one of a variety of
analysis procedures specified in the CSA A23.3 Standard. Once obtained, these moments
are designed for using the standard methods of flexural design. In addition to the
provision of sufficient reinforced to resist the design moments the designer must detail
the slab reinforcement in accordance with the requirements of Clause 13 of the CSA
A23.3 Standard. These detailing provision ensure that sufficient reinforcement is placed
in the areas of the slab where it can be best utilized to resist the design moments and
provide the best deflection and crack control possible to the slab.
Slab Reinforcement:
The A23.3 Standard specifies a minimum area of slab reinforcement in each direction
equal to 0.002 Ag. This ensures sufficient shrinkage crack control in the slab. The
capacity of this level of reinforcement in the slab should be evaluated early in the design
as it will in many instances be sufficient to resist the factored moments in the slab.
Additional concentrated reinforcement will be required in the negative moment region
over supports to provide sufficient negative moment resistance in these high stress areas.
The CSA A23.3 Standard also requires structural integrity reinforcement in the bottom of
the slab directly over supports to ensure that a catastrophic punching shear failure leading
to a progressive collapse will be averted.

Shear and Moment Transfer:

One-way slabs are designed for 1-way beam shear only. While two-way slabs are

also checked for beam shear although it is rarely critical. Two-way punching shear is
usually the critical shear failure mechanism in two-way slabs. Slabs supported by beams
are treated as unit strips spanning to the beams. The CSA A23.3 Standard contains
prescriptive punching shear design requirements for corner, edge and interior columns. In
addition to pure punching shear, additional shear is imparted to the slab at supports
through unbalanced moments that develop on either side of the support. These additional
shears must be added to the straight punching shear stresses to determine the full twoway shear demand on the slab at the support.
Where shear is determined to be a problem several solutions are employed. In
addition to increasing the slab thickness, the designer may use column capitals, drop
panels or both. As a somewhat more elaborate measure, slab shear reinforcement may be
included where circumstances warrant such a measure.
Design examples are presented to assist in interpreting the provisions of specific clauses
of the Standard. It should be pointed out that each example is an incomplete design in
that only portions of the slab system are considered. Computations described in other
chapters of this Handbook are usually omitted.