1) Ground floor slab

Unlike first floor and second floor slabs, ground floor slabs don’t carry flexural stress but since
concrete is weak in tension, you need to avoid severe cracking that would result from tension
above the concrete capacity and Expansion joint materials are placed between grade beam and
ground floor slab. Grade beams are not doubly reinforced structures but hanger bars run
longitudinally in the nominal compression zone for vertical stirrups to be fixed and allocated
properly. In fact Negative bars are provided in the tension zone like cantilever beams.
The ground floor slabs don’t support any flexural stress, so what is the use of the reinforcement
in the ground floor slab?

Most structural slabs-on-ground have both top and bottom layers of reinforcement. Shrinkage

and temperature reinforcement is top layer steel reinforcement limits the widths of random
cracks that may occur because of concrete shrinkage and temperature restraints, sub-base
settlement, applied loads or other issues. Structural reinforcement is typically placed in the
bottom portion of the slab thickness for the purpose of increasing the slab's load capacity.
Figure 2:8 Casting Ground slab
Sturdy concrete barriers ensures the correct alignment, maintain specified surface level and as
control joints to minimize random cracks in large span ground slab.