Self weight - excluding slabs loadcase

Tekla Structural Designer automatically calculates the self weight of the structural beams/columns for you. The Self weight - excluding slabs loadcase is pre-defined for this purpose. Its loadcase type is fixed as “Selfweight”. It cannot be edited and by default it is added to each new load combination.

Self weight of concrete slabs

Tekla Structural Designer expects the wet and dry weight of concrete slab to be defined in separate loadcases. This is required to ensure that members are designed for the correct loads at construction stage and post construction stage.

The Slab self weight loadcase is pre-defined for the dry weight of concrete post construction stage, its loadcase type is fixed as “Slab Dry”.

There is no pre-defined loadcase for the wet weight of concrete slab at construction stage, but if you require it for the design of any composite beams in the model the loadcase type should be set to “Slab Wet”.

Tekla Structural Designercan automatically calculate the above weights for you taking into account the slab thickness, the shape of the deck profile and wet/dry concrete densities. It does not explicitly take account of the weight of any reinforcement but will include the weight of decking. Simply click the Calc Automatically checkbox when you create each loadcase. When calculated in this way you can’t add extra loads of your own into the loadcase.

If you normally make an allowance for ponding in your slab weight calculations, Tekla Structural Designer can also do this for you. After selecting the composite slabs, you are able to review the slab item properties - you will find two ways to add an allowance for ponding (under the slab parameters heading). These are:

Using either of these methods the additional load is added as a uniform load over the whole area of slab.