Grade Beam - Design Purpose : Misunderstandings

Grade Beam - Design Purpose : Misunderstandings

Grade Beam: It refers to the beam which runs on the soil surface or backfilled material . 

Design Purpose : The grade beams are designed to take the load pertaining to the non-load bearing walls which simply means the dead load of the wall . Now that the design purpose is only to take this load and the grade beam should take the load without any support beneath (as designed in practice) we may confront some misunderstandings regarding grade beams.

Misunderstandings 

First and foremost the grade beams doesn't necessarily require a block wall support beneath which is mostly done by contractors to enhance their work speed. The design is mostly done , if support is taken into consideration, with compacted soil or natural surface level beneath it. Although most of the designs are done with no support assumed below. 

The slab on grade ends are not necessarily kept upon grade beam but it's done merely  to ease the laying and pouring. And it was recommended to keep the top of the G.S as the top of G.B resulting in the total load transfer of the G.S to the compacted Soil/Natural ground.