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SLAB ENGINEERING

REINFORCED CONCRETE SLAB DESIGN ASSISTANT

SAFI’s reinforced concrete slab design assistant becomes the ultimate tool for slab design in a simple and intuitive way. Part of the GSE Concrete Design , it allows the user to quickly and efficiently generate design strips for any concrete slab.

The reinforced concrete slab design assistant allows the user to quickly generate the design strips of a concrete slab. The assistant generates column strips and middle strips that are adapted to the geometries of the bidirectional span of the slab. This assistant is directly linked to the automated mesh generation functionalities, allowing us to use the geometrical elements such as supports, walls and openings for both the finite elements model and the design strips generation.

SLAB ENGINEERING APPLICATION

Directly linked to the automated functionalities of the line of integration using finite elements, this application allows the user to operate in a specialized environment in order to perform mesh generation. SLAB ENGINEERING simultaneously defines model geometric elements such as supports, walls and openings.

The assistant generates column strips and middle strips that are adapted to the geometries of the bidirectional span of the slab. This assistant is directly linked to the automated mesh generation functionalities, allowing us to use the geometrical elements such as supports, walls and openings for both the finite elements model and the design strips generation.

Slab Engineering supports a complete and efficient solution for slab design. Without a doubt, this new technological breakthrough will help increasing productivity and success in various design projects.

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Automated generation of the design strip

Once all the column lines are defined into the model, it is possible to use the automated generation of the design strip. This command will automatically generate integration lines representing the design strip adapted to the geometry of column lines for the slab. Further information on the use of integration lines is available in the technical document on this topic.

The column lines are used to determine the overall geometry of the bidirectional bay in the slab. These bays are detected by having a rectangular shaped bay closed between two X horizontal column lines and two Y vertical column lines. It is possible to have multiple supports present along one span. The four sides of a bay need to be indicated with a column line in order to allow the proper detection of a bidirectional bay.

SLAB ENGINEERING APPLICATION

The width of the column strip is calculated as the quarter of the shorter of the two spans of a bi-directional bay. In the case where a bay is not perfectly symmetrical, the shortest side of the bay will be considered. If one of the column strips is not completely parallel with the reinforcement axis of the slab, its width will be adjusted to the absolute width on both sides of the strip, as illustrated below. The more inclined the strip will be, the wider it will be adjusted. The middle strip is the space available between two column strips, hence the user only has to manage the width of the two surrounding column strips.

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