By
Sourav Dutta
Manager-Civil

What is slab?
A RCC (Reinforced Cement Concrete) slab is the most common structural element of any type of building. Horizontal slabs, typically between 4 and 20 inches (100 and 500 millimeters) thick, are most often used to construct floors and ceilings.Here discussion on “flat slab” has not been considered.

Typical loads to be considered for slab design
(i) Dead load: Any permanent load acting on the slab e.g. self-weight of slab, weight of floor finish & plaster

(ii) Live Load: Any non-permanent or moving load e.g. weight of occupants, furniture, and partitionon the slab

(iii) Snow load (if any)

Note: Earthquake and Wind loads are not considered in the design of slabs.

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By
Sourav Dutta
Manager-Civil

Introduction
There are a number of ways in which the superstructure can be built. In areas where average to good quality bricks are available, the walls of houses for two to three storeyed constructions can be built out of bricks with the slabs, lintels, chajja etc. in reinforced concrete. Such construction is termed as load bearing construction (Fig 1). This is essentially because the entire load coming from the slabs, beams, walls etc is transmitted to the foundation through the brick walls.

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1. Introduction
There are lots of methods and test, that we can use for assessing the quality of construction sand or Common sand. But when it comes to the case of site practices, the methods like bulk density, bulkage, specific gravity test etc, become difficult or up to an extent impossible. There comes the importance of Sieve test on fine aggregates.

Sieve testing is one of the very fast methods of checking the quality of construction sand. Even though, the result of sieve test cannot be considered as the final result to ensure the quality of sand.

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By
KAUSHAL KISHORE
Materials Engineer, Roorkee

Most of our construction sites do not have field-testing laboratory. In this paper simple test methods of construction materials are described which could be performed without any machine or special equipments.

1. TEST FOR ORGANIC IMPURITIES IN FINE AGGREGATE
The aggregate must be checked for organic impurities such as decayed vegetations, humus, and coal dust, etc. Colour test is a reliable indicator of the presence of harmful organic matter in aggregates except in areas where there are deposits of lignite.

Procedure:
a) Fill a 350 ml clear glass medicine bottle upto 75 ml mark with a 3% solution of caustic soda or sodium hydroxide.
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Here are some topics which you can use for your projects if you have chosen Seismic or Earthquake Engineering. You are free to add more project topics via comment section below.

1 Seismic Retrofitting Of Buildings
2 Seismic Behavior Analysis Of Bridges
3 Failure Of Foundation Due To Earthquake
4 Advanced Earthquake Resistant Techniques
5 Innovations In Earthquake Proof Structures
6 Seismic Behavior & Design Of RC Shear Walls
7 Earthquake & Earthquake Resistant Techniques
8 The Seismic Controlling Methods And Devices
9 Role Of Building Codes In Seismic Assessment.
10 Analysis For Seismic Retrofitting Of Buildings
11 Energy Dissipation Devices For Seismic Design.
12 Seismic Analysis and Up-gradation Of Structures
13 Earthquake Resistant Design and its Importance.
14 Steel Bracing Of RC Frames For Seismic Retrofitting
15 Recent Advances In Seismic Retrofitting Of RC Frames.
16 Calculation Of Earthquake – Actions On Building Structures
17 Evaluation Of Earthquake Affected Structure Using NDT WRT.
18 Earthquake Vibration Control Using Modified Frame-shear Wall
19 Seismic Response Of RC Frame Building With First Soft Storey
20 Seismic Design Force For Single-span Slab-girder Skewed Bridges

21 Development Length Requirements In Seismic Force-resisting Members
22 Response Spectrum Modelling For Regions Lacking Earthquake Records
23 Seismic Retrofitting Of RC Buildings Using Traditional Techniques.
24 An Investigation Of Joints Behavior In Seismic Response Of Arch Dams
25 Seismic Resistance Verification Of Confined Masonry Using Shock Table Studies
26 Earthquake Resistant Construction Of R.C.C Building And Construction Practices
27 Brick Masonry Building Model With Seismic Bands Under The Action Of Base Motion
28 Aspects Of Earthquake Disaster Mitigation Special References To Non Engineered Construction
29 An Investigation Of Design Issues related to Seismic Performance Of Pile-to-pile Cap Connections
30 Studies On Strength And Behavior Of Composite Tubes For Earthquake Resistant Industrial Structures
31 Studies On Sleeved Composite Columns Confined With Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer(gfrp) For Seismic Resistance
32 Comparative Strength Analysis Of Rubbers And Cement And Mortar-encased Steel Composite Columns For Seismic Resistance
33 Shear Reinforcement At Slab-column Connections Of Slabs That Are Not Part Of The Lateral-force-resisting System Of A Building In A High Seismic Design Category

If you have any suggestion or feedback do comment below. Help other engineers by suggesting more engineering topics for presentations and reports below. In case you find any error or duplication in the above list, just comment below.