4

Moments in Continuous Slabs

General
The first stage of design is to determine support and span moments for all panels individually by
treating their edges as either simply supported or fully fixed. External edges are generally
considered as simply supported and continuous edges are considered as fully fixed in this stage.
If the slab is connected with an external wall or if any of its edges is partly fixed and partly
simply supported, the following procedure may be adopted:
(a) The ratio of the actual support moment to the bending moment of fully fixed slab, or the ratio
of the width of fixed part to the width of the simply supported part of the edge is evaluated.
(b) The bending moments of the slab are then computed by interpolating between different
support conditions.
For each support over which the slab is continuous, generally, there will be two different support
moments. The difference may be distributed between the panels on either side of the support to
equalize their moments, as in the moment distribution method for frames.
Two methods of differing accuracy are given here for treating the effects of this redistribution on
moments away from the support.
Method I
Method I may be used:
(a) When differences between initial support moments are less than 20 percent of the larger
moment, and
(b) Only for internal structures where the live load does not exceed 2.5 times the permanent load
(qk 2.5gk) or 0.8 times the dead load for external structures (qk 0.8gk).
In other cases either Method II or other more accurate methods shall be used.
When Method I is used, dimensioning is normally, carried out either using:
(a) Initial moments directly, or
(b) Based on the average initial moment at the support.
Method II
In this method consideration of the effects of changes of support moments is limited to the
adjacent spans. Since no effects on neighbouring support sections need be considered, only a
simple balancing operation is required at each edge and no iterative process is involved.
The procedure for applying Method II, is as follows:
(a) Support and span moments are first calculated for individual panels by assuming each panel to
be fully loaded. This is done by using the coefficients given in Table A-1
(b) The unbalanced moment is distributed using the moment distribution method. The relative
stiffness of each panel shall be taken proportional to its gross moment of inertia divided by
the smaller span.
(c) If the support moment is decreased, the span moments mxf and myf are then increased to allow
for the changes of support moments. This increase is calculated as being equal to the change
of the support moment multiplied by the factors given in Table A-2. If a support moment is

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increased, no adjustment shall be made to the span moments.