Orthotropic slabs (and slab specific stiffness adjustments)

The Orthotropic option in FE meshed slab item properties has two practical uses:

It enables different stiffnesses to be set for the two orthogonal (X and Y) directions of slabs thus making them orthotropic rather than isotropic (same stiffness in both directions). This can be used to model slab elements that exhibit orthotropic material properties and are assumed to behave predominantly as “one-way spanning”, such as precast slab units, profiled steel decking, timber decks on floor joists and cross-laminated timber (CLT) elements.
For isotropic slabs, it also provides a way to override the global stiffness modification factor with a slab specific factor.

For more information click the following links: