Behaviour of concrete flat plate slabs under general loading.

Abstract

Reinforced concrete flat plate structures have been more widely used in residential buildings around the world because of their simple formwork, minimum total height of the building, and maximum architectural freedom in design. However, as one of the weaknesses of this kind of structures, the transfer of shear and moment at the slab-column connections may result in sudden and brittle punching failure at these connections. Thus the economy of the structure is also dependent on the degree to which the ultimate strength of the slab-column connections can be predicted and utilized. The purpose of this research program is to investigate the punching behavior of slab-column connections experimentally and analytically, considering the effects of biaxial unbalanced moments, openings, and also elongated column sections. For this purpose, two series of experimental work have been carried out, one analytical model and one semi-empirical method have also been developed to predict the punching shear capacity of general slab-column connections.