Abstract
Out-of-plane offsets causing wall discontinuities in piloti buildings can generate significant shear forces in the transfer slabs, potentially leading to brittle shear failure and slab collapse during earthquakes. To address this issue, this study investigates the effectiveness of practical shear reinforcement details for reinforcing concrete slabs in critical regions influenced by out-of-plane offsets. An experimental program was conducted on ten specimens representing slab-wall connections in piloti buildings. The main test parameters included the shear span-to-depth ratio (a/d) and the configuration of the shear reinforcement. The experimental results found that all the proposed practical shear reinforcement details exhibited favorable performance in strengthening the RC slab-wall connections for a given range of a/d ratios. Notably, these practical details outperformed conventional reinforcement configurations, particularly for slabs with a small a/d ratio of 1.5. Moreover, shear reinforcement details employing T-type units demonstrated comparable performance in reducing crack propagation compared to their U-type- and Z-type counterparts, despite having a smaller effective shear reinforcement area within the shear span. Finally, the shear strengths of the slab-wall connections were evaluated and discussed using current design codes and theoretical models.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have