Etabs vs Safe Area Load Summation for Overlapping Elements

[ryan89]

Is there anyway in ETABS to make area loads additive similar to SAFE?

When using SAFE, when two or more slab areas overlap, the area loads of the elements are additive. Thus, for a flat slab layout with one SLAB area and multiple smaller DROP areas, the live load would only need to be assigned to the large slab area and no loading need be assigned to the DROP areas. The result would be a uniform live load over the entire floor.

When using ETABS, I followed the same procedure but it appears that the DROP panel loading (zero live load) overwrites the live load assigned to the entire slab. I checked a simple flat slab by hand and the total reaction loads from the ETABS model were less than my hand calculation by a factor exactly proportional to the area of the floor lost due to the area of the DROP panels.

Does everyone else observe the same thing? Or am I doing something incorrectly? Is there anyway in ETABS to make area loads additive?

 

[li0ngalahad]

I'd like to know this as well. Is there anyone who can help?
I would also like to know how does etabs consider overlapping slabs with different thicknesses, how do I assign priorities to overlapping areas?

 

[Pharaohnee]

I usually just draw "NONE" slab areas over my actual slabs and assign additional loading to them, which is similar to what I do in SAFE.

 

[li0ngalahad]

Yeah but what if that area has also a different thickness, a balcony for example. ETABS overwrites the new thickness (like in SAFE) but also the load, while in SAFE it sums the loads. As a result when I export from ETABS to SAFE I have to change all the loads,which is time consuming and annoying. There must be a way to control how ETABS treats the loads on overlaying areas so it is compatible with SAFE... Help please

 

[li0ngalahad]

this is a big issue for me at the moment, the loads I apply on ETABS (overwriting) comes up wrong when I export the storey to SAFE (additive), is there any solution to this?? come on guys, anyone knows who can help?