If extended longitudinally, a body it is considered to be subject to a tensile axial stress, whereas if compressed, it is subject to a compressive axial stress.
Conventionally in structural design, a tensile stress is positive and a compressive stress is negative.
A concrete floor will be subjected to many compressive loads, through Materials Handling Equipment (MHE) trafficking and racking, in turn generating stresses in the slab. However, this mode of failure is rarely critical; a concrete floor will normally fail in shear or bending.
Bending moments can induce varying internal axial stresses across the cross-section of a floor slab.
If a slab is restrained as it undergoes shrinkage and it will experience tensile axial stresses which can cause cracking.
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