Practical Design of Reinforced Concrete Buildings

In this chapter, the basic concepts of reinforced concrete are introduced. Two building models are provided to illustrate the actions of building structural elements such as slabs, beams, columns, footings, and walls. The actions of forces such as bending, shear, axial force, axial force plus bending, torsion, diagonal tension, and shear friction are conceptually explained. This chapter is concept based and the later chapters are code based. In order to understand the code requirements and the design methodology, understanding of the concepts of structural elements and the actions of the forces on them due to the applied load is very important. Hence, the reader should give prime importance to this chapter.