My Meshed Slab Does Not Transfer Load to Supporting Beams (SAP2000)

[Tygra_1983]

Dear all

I have this simple structure in SAP2000:



I want the self-weight of the slab to transfer to the beam at the slab edges. The self-weight = 25 kN/m^3*0.2m = 5 kN/m^2. I have done the appropriate meshing, but the self-weight of the slab does no seem to be transferring to the beams. Please see the following figure:





As you can see the load on the beam is 0.33 kN/m. From my calcs it should be a trapezoidal load with a maximum of 5 kN/m.

Does anyone know why this might be happening?

Many thanks.

 

[BulbTheBuilder]

I am not entirely sure what is happening but try assigning a stiffness of 0.001 to your slab and see what happens. Your slab element is a shell (guessing since it is meshed. Membrane has only in-plane stiffness), is there a possibility your shell is contributing to stiffness issues?

 

[Luceid]

Your shell elements will typically not transfer load directly as a uniform load - especially if you are meshing and using regular area loads. Shells will deposit load at their corners - so the 0.33 kN/m is most likely the beam's self weight. All of those point loads are the shell loads - make sure your frame is internally meshing at intermediate joints so it can catch these points (which it looks like it is doing).