On the safety of the strip method for reinforced concrete slab design

The safety of the strip method of design for reinforced concrete slabs is examined by using an automated yield line system to analyse a total of 14 representative slabs which have been designed by the strip approach. For the slabs considered, it is shown that the strip method does produce conservative designs, although in many instances this is only just the case. For regular, rectangular slabs, strip designs tend to be just safe, but in irregular cases the designs are more variable, ranging from the marginally unconservative to over-designs of the order of 30%.