Surface Elements

[Shahzad Khan]

When a slab is designed in ETABS or SAP2000, usually the Membrane and diaphragm value is assigned to it. One of our structure designing professor assigned values of both membrane and diaphragm same and told us that, this will be always constant and same. I am a bit confused why so? What actually these parameters represents? I only knows the basic definition of Line element and surface element. When i opened the ABAQUS User manual it was clearly defined that, shell thin consider only in plane stresses while shell thick consider out of plan stress also which are i think shear deformations.

[Ayesha]

  On 5/13/2019 at 10:17 AM, Tufail Mabood said:

When a slab is designed in ETABS or SAP2000, usually the Membrane and diaphragm value is assigned to it. One of our structure designing professor assigned values of both membrane and diaphragm same and told us that, this will be always constant and same. I am a bit confused why so?

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This is a good question. I would suggest asking it to your professor and share the information here.