What is the formula for taking load from two way slab for

beam design?
Krishna Kinkar Mishra, Civil engineer with experience at construction sites.
Updated Mar 21
The formula is simple to develop if you know the theory. And theory is to divide the adjoining slab
into geometric figures by drawing angle bisectors of four angles and joining the vertices of triangles
thus formed. See figures below.

Thus we get four geometrical figures; two isosceles triangles and two trapeziums. The loads on these
four areas are allocated to adjoining beams for design purpose. Thus beam along length of two way
slab gets trapezium area of load and the beam along width of two way slab gets triangle area of load. If
other side of the beams have similar sizes of two way slabs the loads get doubled otherwise
calculations for different sizes are done.

Now Formula:-

Consider the load for beam AB, length b. We have to calculate area of triangle ABE which is =
2*½*(b/2)*(b/2) = b²/4 sq units. If load per unit area of the slab be ‘m’, Total load on beam AB=
mb²/4 units distributed as a triangular load with maximum load w=m*b/2 units /unit length at
centre and zero at the ends. The maximum moment in the beam with this load will vary according to
the type of fixity of beam ends.

Now consider the load on beam BC, length ‘l’. Total load on the beam will be ‘m’ times the area of
trapezium. Area of trapezium = ½*Sum of parallel sides*height

parallel side BC= l, EF=l-2*b/2 =l-b; BC+EF = l+l-b =2l-b

Now Area of trapezium = ½*(2l-b)*b/2 =b(2l-b)/4

So total load from trapezium =m*b(2l-b)/4 units will be on the beam BC. In calculating moment, load
pattern on beam BC in terms of load per unit length will be -zero from one end uniformly increasing
to m*b/2 per unit length at length b/2 from B, next uniformly distributed load m*b/2 per unit length
up to length (l-b/2) from B, then uniformly decreasing load getting zero at end C.

Again the maximum moment due to this trapezium load in the beam will depend on the type of fixity
of beam ends.

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Robin Kumar, B.Tech Civil from Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur
Updated Mar 22

Take this example :

ABCD is a two way slab ( L/B <2 )

Assume:

Dead load of slab : 0.1 x 25 = 2.5 kN/m^2 (100 mm thick slab)

Live load on slab : 3 kN/m^2

Total load = 5.5 kN/m^2

Now for finding force on beam BC the load will come from the triangular hatched part of slab

So we multiply the load by vertical length of triangle to get load on beam per unit length

2∗5.5=11kn/m2∗5.5=11kn/m
fig (b) shows the disribution of load on beam BC ( same will be for beam DC )

(If we convert this load on beam as uniform load we will get maximum bending moment of 11 kN/m
but now as we have considered this load in form of triangle so we will get a maximum BM of 14.67
kN/m……Always consider the worst case Mohit Nagpal )

fig (c) load distribution on beam DC