An experimental study on post-punching behavior of flat slabs to prevent progressive collapse

If unpredictable loads are applied to the flat slab-column connections, punching shear failure occurs with almost no warning signs. According to the brittle manner of this failure, the load carried by the slab-column connection redistributes to adjacent supports and causes overloading to these supports. Due to this overloading and brittle nature of punching shear failure, progressive collapse may happen both horizontally or vertically. In order to prevent the progressive collapse of flat slab-column connections, it is necessary to provide a secondary load carrying mechanism after punching shear. In this Paper, Suggestions for establishing a supporting mechanism in the flat slab connections after punching failure are proposed. For this purpose, an experimental study was performed to investigate the post-punching behavior of 9 slab specimens with various reinforcement layouts and concrete covers. The effects of integrity, compressive and bent-up reinforcements, diameter of tensile reinforcements, and concrete cover of tensile reinforcements on the post-punching behavior of slab-column connections were studied. The results of the experiments show that the integrity reinforcements significantly improve the post-punching strength. The compressive reinforcements may not increase post-punching strength. The increase of the concrete cover of the tensile reinforcements and decrease of the diameter of the tensile reinforcement result in an increase of the post-punching strength. The bent-up reinforcement increases the punching and post-punching strengths, simultaneously.