Mat Slab Foundation

A raft or mat foundation is a large continuous rectangular or circular concrete slab that carries the entire load of the superstructure and spreads it over the whole area beneath the building.

Mat slab foundation.

It is used to support storage tanks industrial equipment silos chimneys and various tower structures. It is a continuous thick concrete slab on the soil that extends the entire footprint of the building and increases the soil bearing capacity power. In other words a shallow foundation. It is a mat of concrete that sits on or just below the ground.

The site where the structure has to be constructed is first excavated. Mat foundation is also known as the raft foundation. An inventive foundation for difficult sites for building sites with tricky soil conditions mat slabs provide an effective solution. It is considered as one type of shallow foundation and is useful in controlling the differential settlement.

The mat foundation is always larger than the structure itself. A mat foundation spreads out under. This gives the building a foundation which is strong and durable and the construction starts on the slab. You may have heard it referred to as a slab foundation a common choice for steel buildings.

A shallow foundation is a type of building foundation that transfers building loads to the earth very near to the surface rather than to a subsurface layer or a range of depths as does a deep foundation shallow foundations include spread footing foundations mat slab foundations slab on grade foundations pad foundations rubble trench foundations and earthbag foundations. When the site has been leveled and dried up the slab of the mat foundation is laid down. Sometimes it is stepped to spread the load over a larger area. It is circular square or rectangular slab of uniform thickness.

Though little known 10 years ago. Usually mat foundation is spread over the entire area of the structure it is supporting. Raft foundation is actually a thick concrete slab resting on a large area of soil reinforced with steel supporting columns or walls and transfer loads from the structure to the soil. When footing is provided to support an individual column it is called isolated footing.

A mat foundation sometimes called a raft foundation looks like it sounds.