https://communities.bentley.com/products/ram-staad/f/ram-staad-forum/220230/ram-concept-how-to-determine-the-cover-to-cgsThe definition in the manual for the Cover to CGS is &quot;the distance from the top of the slab to the bottom of the top bar&quot;. This will be the bottom of TOP bar or TOPTOP bar? What I&#39;ve found is that, this value greatly affects the result of punching shearen-USTelligent Community 12https://communities.bentley.com/thread/674894?ContentTypeID=1Fri, 01 Oct 2021 12:17:41 GMT6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:887f6603-bc9b-4fb5-98fe-de03d34bc0ffKarl G<p><span>For most design codes, the effective depth for punching shear is taken as the average of distances from the compression most fiber to centroid of tension reinforcements in both orthogonal direction. If you the design code that you are using does not define the effective depth for punching shear explicitly and you have doubts on how to calculate it, I would use the value that leads to the most conservative design result.</span></p><div style="clear:both;"></div>