2017

The University Of Lahore

Assignment 14/12/17

[FLAT PLATES]

Submitted by Syed Zaki Ahmed

Submitted To Ar Maam Madiha
 Flat Plates
Def:
Flat plates are concrete slabs of uniform thickness reinforced in two or
more directions and supported directly by columns without beams and
girders.

Flat Plate System:

With increasing demand for flexibility in interior layout, the use of flat
plate for landed houses is gaining much popularity amongst architects.
The main and unique feature of this system is that it provides a way for
the architect to achieve the concept of high and completely flat ceiling
with no beam protrusion. Some projects have reported an
improvement in the construction speed and cost savings from using this
system which requires only simple formwork. The use of flat plate
appeals to designers particularly because design flexibility is possible
through shifting of walls without the need for columns to be properly
aligned. The services can be installed within or below the slab and there
are flexibilities in relocating vertical small penetrations. The soffit is
often flat and high ceiling height can be achieved. The columns used in
this system are either cast in-situ concrete columns or circular steel
hollow sections. When the columns used are steel hollow sections with
concrete in-fill, the desired finish with exposed steel can be easily

achieved .

Connection and Details:

The main consideration for steel column connection to flat plate is to
ensure that the base plate for the steel columns are cast into the
concrete flat plate. Hence the positioning and alignment of the base
plates are of utmost importance. If concrete in-fill and column bars are
required within the steel hollow section, the starter bars for the
columns have to be placed and fixed in position prior to casting of
concrete flat plate (see figure 5.5 for base plate connection). In the
concrete column with flat plate design, the connection is more
simplified without the need for base plate connection. In this case,
reinforcement bars should be properly detailed between the columns
and slabs. Punching shear checks are critical and vertical shear
reinforcement should be detailed accordingly.
Alternatively, designers may introduce hidden beam within slab along
column strip to cater for the shear stresses near column location.
Hidden beam within column strip Figure 5.5 Base plate details for
column.

Figure 5.6 Semi-detached houses using flat plate with steel column
(near completion).

Steps involved in designing Flat plates

 Load Calculation
 Total Factored Static Moment
 Limitations of DDM
 Longitudinal Distribution of Moments
 Torsional Constant C
 Transverse Distribution of Longitudinal Moments
 Design of Slab Thickness and Reinforcement
 Shear Design
 Design of Columns
 Design of Shear Head Reinforcement

The following are the key factors to be considered

before adopting the use of the concrete flat plate with
steel/concrete column system:
– Architectural layout should be well planned to fully
enhance the main area where high flat ceiling with
neatly arranged steel/concrete columns are required in
the design
– Spacing of columns
– Punching shear checks at column areas
– Long term deflection of the flat plate
– Early planning of routing for M&E services, opening
for voids and location of staircase
The design of flat slab structures involves three steps
– Framing system
– Engineering analysis
 – Reinforcement design and detailing

 Benefits of Flat Plate system

 (A) Larger Span Length Achieved

 The span ‘L’ of a reinforced concrete flat-plate is

approximately D x 28 for simply supported, D x 30
for an end span of a continuous system, to D x 32
for internal continuous spans. The economical span
of a flat plate can be extended by prestressing to
approximately D x 30, D x 37 and D x 40
respectively, where D is the depth of slab. Whereas
for the traditional reinforced concrete beam-and-slab
floor has an economical span ‘L’ of D x 15 for a
single span and D x 20 for a multi-span, where D is
 the depth of the slab plus beam. The depth of slab
between the beams can be initially sized using the
span-to-depth ratios for a flat plate.

 (B) Flat Soffit i.e. Flat Ceiling

 The main and unique feature of this system is that it

provides a way for the architect to achieve the
concept of high and completely flat ceiling with no
beam protrusion. The services can be installed within
or below the slab and there are flexibilities in
relocating vertical small penetrations. The soffit is
often flat and high ceiling height can be achieved.
Whereas traditional beam column slab system, the
ceiling is not flat and hence many locations it is
required to use false ceiling to get a flat ceiling,
which is again going to increase the cost of
construction. Moreover the lifespan of false ceiling
few years and hence it needs to be changed several
times in the lifespan of the structure. This problem
can be avoided with flat plate system. As already the
soffit of the slab is flat, there is no need of providing
false ceiling. Because of this flat plate slab system
has found immense use in hotels, malls, public
buildings.

(C) Savings in Shuttering Cost

 Shuttering/ Formwork constitutes a major cost of

construction of reinforced concrete structure. In a
traditional beam column slab system, the need of
shuttering area is more and so the cost of formwork
is also more. Whereas flat plate system requires only
 soffit shuttering of slabs, which makes flat plate slab
system very popular amongst the builders as it has
many fold benefits.

 (D) Savings in Construction Time

 As formwork and stagging time is reduced, the

overall construction time also gets reduced
considerably in flat plate slab system. Keeping in
mind of the tight schedule of the projects these
days, if construction time can be saved in some
means, it will give the builder/ owner early
commissioning time of the project, which in turn will
reward them with early revenue generation.

 (E) Prestressing

 Prestressing is not possible in traditional beam

column system, whereas post-tensioned flat
plat/slabs are a common variation of the
conventional plate structure where most of the
reinforcement is replaced by post-tensioned strands
of very high strength steel. The structural advantage
of post tensioning over conventional RCC is that the
slab is nearly crack free at full service load. This
leads to a smaller deflection compared to
conventional RCC because of the higher rigidity of
the uncracked section. Hence reduction in thickness
of the slab compared to conventional RCC is the
rationale for using post-tensioning system for spans
over 10m and above. Further the lack of cracking
leads to a watertight structure. Flat plat/slab design
 and build contractors in India claim a 20% cost
reduction compared to conventional RCC.

 (F) Building Height

 Traditional beam column slab system is absence of

beams in the flat plate slab system. Which is very
much beneficial for malls, theaters, hotels etc. . In
malls, theaters, hotels, because of higher span
requirement, the depth of beam is very high, which
adds to the floor height making the overall height of
each floor more. This again has cost impact as well
as aesthetic impact on the structure. This problem
can be avoided by adopting flat plate floor system.
Also by adopting to suitable prestressing system, it is
possible to do construction of higher span slabs,
without any increase in floor height which is a major
concern with beam column slab system.

 (G) Service
 In traditional beam column slab system the
penetrations through beams for large ducts difficult
to handle. This is a common need in hotels, malls,
public buildings, as the service lines are more in
these time of buildings. Since making holes in large
size beams is not feasible the service lines needs to
be taken through longer routes, which again
increases the cost of installation and effects the
aesthetics by a great deal. With the adoption of flat
plate slab system, the large and bulky sized beams
are avoided and service lines can be very easily
taken through the slab by keeping suitable and
required sized openings in the slab. Figure 6 shows
one such work, where service lines were routed
through the openings in the slab.

 Example:
 Drawbacks of Flat Plate System:
 Though Flat plate slab system promises a world of
benefits over the traditional beam column slab system,
still all is not well with this kind of system too. The
main disadvantages of the flat plate system are
deflection control, punching shear at columns, and
future core drilling. The relatively thin slab of the
structure makes it susceptible to excessive deflections
and floor vibrations, in a laboratory facility such as the
MSC this could be an issue. The uniformity of the flat
plate system may lend itself to an ease of
construction, however, it is not very efficient at
resisting shear forces at critical locations, namely
columns. If the slab is found to be inadequate to resist
punching shear, certain measures can be introduced to
strengthen these locations. These include increasing
the depth of the slab over the entire panel, increasing
the column size, adding a shear capital, or adding
shear reinforcement. Furthermore, in a research
facility experiments and equipment is often changing
to meet the needs of the current industry. This often
results in retrofits to the structure involving core
drilling of the slab. In a 2-way system this can be
problematic because it significantly lowers strength
capacity of the floor system. The most dominant
failure type in flat plate slab system is brittle failure
caused by shear failure. But it does not mean that
these drawbacks will limit the use of flat plate floor
system. These limitations and drawbacks can be
overcome by adopting suitable design practice.

 Conclusion:
 Flat Plate slab system often provide the most
economical solution for high-rise residential/
commercial construction. The system’s low floor
height, compared to traditional beam column slab
system results in overall reduction of building height
which further results lesser dead load, leading to
lower foundation costs. Flat plate/slab construction is
a developing technology in India. Flat plate/slab can
be designed and built either by conventional RCC or
Post-tensioning. Design of conventional RCC flat
plate/slab in India, utilizing Indian codes, has many
shortcomings, which have to be addressed and
revised soon. Until then Indian engineers will
continue to use Indian codes in combination with
other standards like the ACI, BS or Euro Code to
design and analyze Flat slabs/plates.

 Reference:

 – Holbert, David H, P.E. Concrete: Floor Framing

Systems, lecture 10/4/2010.
– Fanella, David A. “Concrete Floor Systems:
Guide to Estimating and Economizing”. 2nd Ed.
Portland Cement Association, 2000.
– Guide to Long-Span Concrete Floors, Cement
and Concrete Association of Australia.
– Review and Design of Flat Plate/Slabs
Construction in India, Gowda N Bharath; Gowda S.
B. Ravishankar; A.V Chandrashekar
– Indian Standard IS 456:2000, Plain and
Reinforced Concrete Code of Practice.
– Purushothaman P., Reinforced Concrete
Structural Elements, Tata McGraw-Hill Publication
Company Ltd. New Delhi. 1984
– Verghese P.C., Advanced Reinforced Concrete
Design, Prentice-Hall of (India Private Ltd. New
Delhi. 2003
– Notes on ACI 318-2000, Building Code
Requirement For Reinforced Concrete, Portland
cement association. USA 2000
– Structural Design Guide to the ACI Building code,
Third edition, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company. New
York. 1985
– Kenneth Leet and Dionisio Bernal, Reinforced
Concrete Design, Third edition, McGraw-Hill, USA.
1997
– Structural Engineering Handbook, Forth Edition,
McGraw-Hill, USA1997
– Alaa G. S. and Walter H.D., Analysis and
Deflection of Reinforced Concrete Flat Slabs,
Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, Vol. 25. 1998
– Branson, D.E, Deformation of Concrete
Structures, McGraw-Hill Company, New York.1977
– Nilson A.H. and Walter D.B., Deflection of Two-
way Floor Systems by the Equivalent Frame Method,
ACI Journal, Vol. 72, No.5 1975
– Indian Standard IS 1893 (Part 1): 2002, Criteria
for Earthquake Resistant Design of Structures.
– Uniform Building Code, International Conference
of Buildings Officials, California. 2002
– John W. W., Thomas H.K. and Changsoon R.H.A,
Dynamic Response of Flat Plate System With Shear
Reinforcement, ACI Journal, Vol. 102, No.5

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