I am modeling a suspended slab on grade with grade beams. In the Design status, it shows the shear reinforcement in the beams but when I look at the Reinforcement detailed bars perspective, it shows the shear reinforcement coming out of the beams through the slab and part of the stirrups are not even in the concrete. I was wondering why RAM is doing this.
On the design status layers, the tick marks for the shear bars are a bit symbolic. They are typically placed along the span segment line and spaced based on the design. See manual section 29.5.4 "Shear reinforcement" for details on this kind of output:
On the reinforcement design the program tries to place the bars within the shear core, and it usually does a fine job:
But with strips that have a variable shear core or complex geometry you might have such a problem. Take a look at the manual, section 53.5 “How Concept treats transverse reinforcement and individual transverse bars” for details.
I'm happy to look into it further if you want to send the file, but it should not affect any of the capacity calculations.
Before I send you my model, I was also curious about modeling my slab. I have a suspended slab on grade beams. The slab is on grade, the grade beams are 18"x 18" and 2 feet below grade. The grade beams will be cast before the slab and will have dowels going into the slab to tie them together. I am not counting on the grade beams to provide any bending capacity. I have been modeling the slab with a 2 ft thickness where the grade beams will be. Is there another way to model the slab that will include the grade beams?
Well, my thought is to model the beams and slabs as they are in the end and just trim the strips over the beams to exclude them from the capacity calculations. Using a line spring to simulate the stiffness of the beam might be another approach.
You can use the Secure File Upload if you want to keep the file confidential.
Will the portions that are trimmed still be used in the load history calculation? Also, if I were to trim the beams would I set the column strips to two-way slabs instead of beam?
Yes, the load history uses trimmed sections in it's analysis. I figured if you were "not counting on the beam for bending capacity" then you were checking the slab strip as a two-way slab already.