Post Tension Design offers three types of designs for
post-tensioned slab foundations. Each of these methods results in a prestressed concrete slab that is designed to respond as a unit when
subjected to unusual and/or unplanned deflections from the building pad.
Most of these deflections are caused by soil activity in the form of
expansion, shrinkage or differential movement across the building pad brought about by minor
settlement.
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The Post-tensioned Ribbed
Slab
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The Post-tensioned Mat
Slab
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The California
Post-tensioned Slab
The degree to which one of these designs
may be the most effective for a particular project depends to great extent
upon the judgment of the post-tension engineer as well as that of the
projects' other design professionals. For this reason and whenever
possible, the post-tension engineer should be included as a part of the
design team early in the planning stages.
By their very nature, post-tensioning tendons are an active concrete
reinforcement that by design contain a large reserve of tensile strength
that's always on-call when needed. As applied in any of these three
methods this property not only provides effective crack control but goes a
long way toward limiting the destructive effects of subgrade movement upon
the foundation's superstructure.
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