Slab On-Grade

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Slab-on-Grade or floating slab as known in other resources is an easy example of the shallow foundation. Despite its easy look and it has many critical points concerning the thickness and the design. As a definition it is a flat structural element that is poured and constructed to transfer the loads directly to the ground. The formworks of the slab are easy to be used because it covers large areas with almost constant thickness. It is known as a cheap and fast foundation.
It proved a strong resistance under dynamic loads as well as the static ones. It is used in the one story constructions and it holds moving loads and one story walls.
As shown in the image below, The Slab-on-Grade depends on the subgrade underneath, the strength and the stability of the subgrade is very important key for the strong and stable Slab. Designers usually care for improving the underneath the Slab. The modulus of subgrade reaction is the conventional notation for the strength of the subgrade. It is also the key note in the design process for the Slab-on-Grade.
The concrete industries progress showed that the concrete Slab-on-Grade can be modified to be stiffer and have a higher tensile strength. It may resist the changes in soil due to swelling for example.
As we have mentioned before Slab-on-Grade is strong under the dynamic loads so it is widely used in airports, industrial facilities and garages. It resists the loads from the tires of airplanes, forklifts and moving vehicles. Also it is used for the one or two stories residential and commercial buildings that don’t use the basements and the facilities under the level of the slab. California and Texas have many successful stories for houses built on Slabs-on-Grade. The Elevated tanks show a good prac...

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...nd Calderwood 1978; Suaris and Shah 1984), because it requires higher energy to split the fibers from the concrete.
The flexural strength usually reported by the time the first crack appears which is corresponding to the point where the load-deformation curve moves out of linearity (Point A on Figure 4). The second value is the failure value or in other words it is called the ultimate flexural strength or the modulus of rupture (Point C on Figure 4). Johnston reported that the prismatic fibers and hooked ones have effects on the strength of the unreinforced matrices by about 100 percent. High strengths can be achieved in mortars with w/c ratio of 0.45 to 0.55. Using 1.5% of volume as fibers may increase the strength value to the range of (6.5 to 10 MPa) and Johnston experiments in 1980 showed that using 2.5% of volume as fibers may increase the strength to 13 MPa.

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