Reinforced Concrete Mat Foundation Design

A guide for practicing engineers published august 15 2012 author s ron klemencic ian mcfarlane neil hawkins.

Reinforced concrete mat foundation design.

After the pcc reinforcement steel bars are tied cage in place and then the desired thickness of the concrete according to the design is poured. Seismic design of reinforced concrete mat foundations has advanced significantly in the last twenty years. A waterproof membrane sheet is placed over the ground surface and then 4 pcc is poured to create a level base for the mat raft foundation. Adapt mat is a versatile three dimensional 3d finite element fem analysis and design software for any configuration of conventionally reinforced or post tensioned foundation system.

The difference between strong connection and ductile connection precast design is defined. For analysis the mat is divided into mutually perpendicular strips. Nehrp seismic design technical brief no. A discussion is presented.

The slab is idealized as a mesh of rectangular plate finite elements with four nodes at the corners and three degrees of freedom dz rx and ry per node. A mat foundation is a thick reinforced concrete slab supporting arrangements of columns or walls in a row or rows and transmitting the loads to the soil. As analytical capabilities have improved primarily in the form of finite element analysis the mathematical modeling of these continuous structural elements has led to seemingly more precise designs. Seismic design philosophy for ductile precast concrete frames is discussed.

The method is generally applicable where columns are more or less equally spaced. 4 3 approximate plate analysis. Why mat is used. It is used to support storage tanks industrial equipment silos chimneys and various tower structures.

Spmats program uses the finite element method for the structural modeling and analysis of reinforced concrete slab systems or mat foundations subject to static loading conditions. 7 seismic design of reinforced concrete mat foundations.