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Building Elements, Materials, Fixings and Fastenings
Published in Fiona Cobb, Structural Engineer’s Pocket Book, 2020
Drying shrinkage and temperature changes will result in movement in the structure, which could lead to the cracking of an overlying bonded screed. It is general practice to leave concrete slabs to cure for 6 weeks before laying screed or applying rigid finishes such as tiles, stone or terrazzo. For other finishes the required floor slab drying times vary. If movement is likely to be problematic, joints should be made in the screed at predetermined points to allow expansion/contraction/stress relief.
Ground floors
Published in Duncan Marshall, Derek Worthing, Roger Heath, Nigel Dann, Understanding Housing Defects, 2013
Duncan Marshall, Derek Worthing, Roger Heath, Nigel Dann
The concrete slab is usually about 100–150mm thick. Nowadays the required strength of the concrete is set out in the Building Regulations. Prior to this, it depended on local by-laws and generally accepted good practice. In some cases the slab is reinforced with a steel mesh, for example, where soft spots exist in the ground or in garage floors. The mesh prevents the slab from cracking due to uneven loading or minor settlement.
Prediction and feature analysis of punching shear strength of two-way reinforced concrete slabs using optimized machine learning algorithm and Shapley additive explanations
Published in Mechanics of Advanced Materials and Structures, 2023
As an important part of engineering structures, reinforced concrete slabs not only improve the flexibility of buildings, but also simplify the construction process and reduce the completion time and construction cost, and are widely used in construction [1, 2]. Since the slabs are bi-directionally stressed, they are susceptible to large shear and bending stresses when subjected to punching shear forces. Since the brittle nature of punching shear damage, the structure is prone to continuous collapse without warning [3]. For this reason, the punching shear strength (PSS) of the slab-column node under load has received considerable attention and has been an important parameter of structural design concern [4, 5].