Abstract:

The local or global progressive collapse of reinforced concrete (RC) flat slab structures may occur due to the failure of load-bearing columns under the accidental loading, such as explosion and impact. In order to investigate the effect of slab reinforcement details on the progressive collapse performance of RC flat slab structures, two one-third scale RC flat slab substructure models are constructed and tested under monotonic static load in the scenario of loss of a corner column. Experimental results show that (1) continuous top slab reinforcement can effectively reduce the width of cracks on the slab; (2) as compared with the specimen with arranging discontinuous top slab reinforcement, the yield load, first peak load and ultimate bearing capacity of the substructure witharranging continuous top slab reinforcement increase respectively by 38.4%, 31.8% and 7.5%, and the progressive collapse resistance under dynamic load is significantly improved as well; and (3) the tensile membrane action in the slabs contributes significantlymake a significant contribution to the progressive collapse resistance after the working mechanism of yield lines fails.

Key words: reinforced concrete, flat slab structures, progressive collapse, reinforcement details, tensile membrane action