Experimental Investigation on the Behavior of High-Strength Concrete Slabs

Seventeen reinforced concrete slabs were tested to investigate the deformation and strength characteristics of punching shear failure of high-strength concrete slabs. The tested specimens had different slab depths and reinforcement ratios varying between 0.49 and 2.33 percent. Test results revealed that high-strength concrete slabs exhibit a more brittle failure than normal strength concrete. Experimental results indicated that as the level of reinforcement is increased the punching strength of the slabs also in increased. It was found that using the cubic root of the concrete compressive strength to predict the punching resistances of the concrete slabs generally yields better results than the square root expression used in North American codes.