Concrete Slab Design

Minimum thickness for 2-way Slabs

The minimum thickness for 2-way slabs is broken up into multiple parts which have been detailed below:

For slabs without red interior beams (between supports) having a ratio of the long span to short span of less than 2:

  • Slabs without drop panels = 5"
  • Slabs with drop panels = 4"
    • Drop panels are described in section 13.2.5 of the ACI 318-05
Table 1: Min. Thickness of Slabs without interior beams
fy (psi) Without Drop Panels(b) With Drop Panels(b)
Exterior Panels Interior Panels Exterior Panels Interior Panels
Without Edge Beams With Edge Beams(a) Without Edge Beams With Edge Beams(a)
40,000 ln/33 ln/36 ln/36 ln/36 ln/40 ln/40
60,000 ln/30 ln/33 ln/33 ln/33 ln/36 ln/36
75,000 ln/28 ln/31 ln/31 ln/31 ln/34 ln/34

where:

ln = the length of clear span in the long direction (face to face)
fy the yield strength of the rebar
\alpha_f = {E_{cb}I_b\over {E_{cs}I_s}}


Notes:
(a) the value αf of the edge beam shall not be less than 0.8


(b) A definition of a drop panel has been provided here. All conditions of the drop panel must be met to validate using these numbers.


If fy falls between the values provided in the table, minimum thickness can be found from linear interpolation


For slabs with red interior beams (between supports) having a ratio of the long span to short span of less than 2:

To be inserted...



References

  1. American Concrete Institute, "ACI 318", 2005

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