Experimental Behavior of One-Way Concrete Slabs at Large Displacements

Abstract

This paper presents the tensile membrane action on one-way reinforced concrete slabs, and two full-scale specimens with one edge clamped and one edge simply supported were tested at large displacements. The details of the two tests including support conditions, arrangement of reinforcements and layout of displacement transducers are described. The test results show that the load-carrying capacity of the two slabs is significantly improved due to the tensile membrane action, about 26.6% more than the predicted value using the well-established yield-line theory. Until maximum vertical displacement reached 1/15 of the span-length, the slab did not fail and carried the load steadily.