Abstract:
Reinforced concrete buildings comprises majority of buildings in
urban areas. In reinforced concrete slabs the major challenge occurs when
high dead-weight of concrete restricts the span length and thus longer spans
are not feasible with normal construction practices.
It is a known fact that excellent concrete molding capability and
various innovations over the past few years on maximizing the material
utilization led to development of ribbed one way, two way and pre-stressed
slabs.
In this study a comparison of materials quantity of waffle slabs and
flat slabs has been carried out. For analysis purpose slabs are modeled in
computer program SAFE V.12 and the output results obtained from the
analysis are compared with the manual analysis results and then used in
manual design. In this study a square slab of 6×6 m panels is modeled for
both waffle and flat slab under the same loading conditions and using the
same construction material. The models are used to study parameters like
maximum deflection, maximum bending moment and punching shear
resistance.
The amount of concrete and reinforcement required in slab signify
the superiority of waffle slab over flat slab and consequently can be
employed in various applications as an economical alternative for flat slab.
