ملخص
Abstract
Reinforced concrete slabs are among the most common structural elements, but despite the large number of slabs designed and built, the details of the elastic and plastic behavior of slabs are not always appreciated or properly taken into account. The problem for the designer is to decide which method is most appropriate for a given slab. It must be determined whether the chosen method satisfies strength and serviceability requirements and whether the solution is economical from both a design and construction point of view. The purpose is to examine different methods of two-way slab design and compare the results to assess the relative merits of design methods. However, commercially available finite element softwares are not designed for this task as most of them have been developed to be used as verification rather than design tools. 'Home-written' software can be designed to achieve this task, however it may suffer from serious drawbacks such as bugs, lack of user friendliness, lack of generality, and unproven reliability.