Simulations of short- and long-term deflections of flat plates considering effects of construction sequences

The structural designs of RC flat plates that have no flexural stiffness by boundary beams may be governed not by strength conditions but by serviceabilities. Specially, since over-loading and tensile cracking in early-aged slabs significantly increase the short- and long-term deflections of a flat plate system, a construction sequence and its impact on the slab deflections may be decisive factors in designs of flat plate systems. In this study, the procedure of simulating slab deflections with considering construction sequences, concrete cracking, and long-term effects is proposed. The proposed method is practically useful, as it can predict well the slab deflections at construction and service stages only with a few input data. The proposed method is verified by comparisons with measured results in a real-scale test.