Mat Slab Foundation Design

The construction of mat foundation.

Mat slab foundation design. A mat foundation also may be used to resist hydrostatic pressures or to bridge over small soft spots in the soil provided the mat is adequately reinforced. It is used to support storage tanks industrial equipment silos chimneys and various tower structures. Two way slab and beam. The columns are placed on the intersection of beams.

It is used where the supporting soil has low bearing capacity. Although mat foundations are more difficult and more costly to design than individual spread footings they can be used effectively. A mat foundation is a thick reinforced concrete slab supporting arrangements of columns or walls in a row or rows and transmitting the loads to the soil. The building then rests on this foundation leading to lesser contact with the land and hence more strength and stability.

The mat foundation is also reinforced with many bars inside it which run perpendicular to each other. Mat foundation is constructed as a large slab which works as the base for the building. Two way slab and beam raft foundation is suitable when the columns are carrying unequal loads and the spacing is large between them. Typically reinforced with a double layer of rebar throughout its pad a mat slab is capable of bearing loads at virtually any point and distributing heavy loads across an expanse of weak subsoil.

Though little known 10 years ago today mat slabs are a standard solution for building sites with difficult soil conditions.