Composites Part B 99 (2016) 257e265

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Composites Part B
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Punching shear behavior of lightweight fiber reinforced concrete slabs

Angelo Caratelli a, Stefania Imperatore b, Alberto Meda a, Zila Rinaldi a, *
a
University of Rome Tor Vergata, via del Politecnico 1, 00133, Rome, Italy
b
Cusano”, Department of Civil Engineering, 00166, Roma, Italy
University of Rome “Niccolo

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The ultimate behavior of thin reinforced concrete structures, such as slabs, can be governed by punching
Received 7 January 2016 due to point loads. This premature brittle failure mode can occur in bridge deck slabs, often subjected to
Received in revised form severe conditions of loads concentrated in small areas, and characterized by a reduced thickness. In this
27 April 2016
kind of structures, a proper punching reinforcement is not applicable, but the local and global behavior
Accepted 4 June 2016
Available online 6 June 2016
can be improved by the addition of short fibers. Three full-scale slabs, simulating bridge decks, were
tested in the Laboratory of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, to investigate the effect of lightweight
fiber reinforced material on the punching shear resistance. Furthermore, ashes coming from the com-
Keywords:
Punching shear
bustion of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), with pozzolanic reaction, were added to the concrete mix. The
Slabs obtained results are presented, discussed and compared with the MC2010 provisions.
Fiber reinforced concrete © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Municipal solid waste
Experimental tests

1. Introduction bridge structural elements, is the adoption of suitable concrete.

Experimental studies by Ref. [20] demonstrate that the use of High
Punching shear is a critical load condition for reinforced con- Strength Concretes (about 130 MPa) in flat slabs increases the
crete slabs, particularly when reduced thickness are used and a punching capacity, but with a consistent decrease of ductility with
transverse reinforcement cannot be used. As an example, punching respect to analogous slabs in Normal Strength Concretes. Similar
shear verification is particular severe in bridge slabs, where the results are obtained by other authors [23,24,33] in the case of High
thickness should be limited in order to reduce the structure self- Strength Concretes characterized by a strength of about 90 MPa. To
load and a proper transverse reinforcement cannot be placed. increase the ductility of the punching collapse as well as the
Indeed, the position of the point load due to the vehicles is not strength, the use of the Fiber Reinforced Concrete can be suggested.
known and a transverse reinforcement placed along the whole In this case, the improvement of the shear strength in beam ele-
structure leads to remarkable increase of the construction cost. ments is well known and witnessed by numerical and experimental
Punching failure in flat slabs without shear reinforcement de- researches [6,15,29].
velops in a brittle manner with limited deflection and it is followed With reference to slabs, the first experimental tests were carried
by an almost complete loss of the load carrying capacity. Different out by Ref. [18] on small scale fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) slab-
mechanical models have been developed for evaluating the effec- column connections, varying type, content and aspect ratio of fi-
tive punching resistance of flat slabs [4,14,21,26e28]. Among the bers, and span-depth ratio of the slab. The obtained results assessed
methods, the currently most significant approach is based on the the effectiveness of this material in increasing the punching
mechanical model of the critical shear crack theory [30] and [31,32], strength of flat slabs. Subsequently [5], tested slabs with different
also adopted in Ref. [16]. Due to the high values of the local load and types of steel fibers (regular strength hooked fibers, high-strength
the reduced pneumatic imprints, usual slab thickness hooked fibers, twisted fibers) observing an overall improvement of
(200e250 mm) could be not sufficient to satisfy the punching the punching shear behavior, especially in the case of high-strength
safety check. A possible solution, in order to avoid the thickness hooked and twisted fibers. Grimaldi et al. [17] stated that the
increase, and then the increment of dead load on the principal addition of 0.5% by volume of steel fibers (aspect ratio of 67) leads
to an increase of the punching shear bearing capacity of about
30e35%, in slabs with a thickness of 200 mm. Furthermore, an
* Corresponding author.
increase of the punching critical zone was highlighted. Similar re-
E-mail address: [email protected] (Z. Rinaldi). sults were obtained by Ref. [19], that show a variation of the average

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesb.2016.06.045
1359-8368/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
258 A. Caratelli et al. / Composites Part B 99 (2016) 257e265

failure cone angle, depending on the fiber amount. Consequently, Table 1

the use of steel fiber reinforced concrete increased both bearing Concretes mix design and density (amount in kg/m3).

capacity and ductility of flat slabs. Finally, analytical and numerical OC L-MSW L-FRC-MSW
models for the evaluation of the punching shear strength of fiber Cement 453 472 460
reinforced slabs are available in literature and summarised in MSW ashes (40% in slurry) e 140 133
Ref. [15]. Recently a comprehensive research on the adoption of Sand (0e4 mm) 986 922 1113
lightweight fiber reinforced concrete both in beam and slab ele- Coarse aggregate (2e16 mm) 678 165 e
Structural expanded clay LECA (0e15 mm) e 344 295
ments [25] has been developed at the University of Rome Tor
Water (total) 171 170 162
Vergata. The use of innovative concrete in R/C structures is Plasticizers 16 38 48
receiving widespread attention, with particular reference to the Shrinkage reducer agent 29 32 32
idea of reducing the environmental impact of new concrete struc- Steel fibers e e 30
Measured density 2340 2064 2156
tures [34]. In this context, the possibility of partially replacing the
cement with the product of incineration of the municipal solid
waste (MSW) can be of great interest [1e3,7,12,13,22]. A research on
innovative lightweight concrete with ashes coming from the program is shown in Table 1.
burning of MSW, having pozzolanic properties, has been developed The concrete has been prepared in a truck mixer. For every batch
by the authors. Its possible application in combination with steel a quantity of concrete equal to 2.5 m3 has been mixed and the mixer
fiber reinforcement is proposed for bridge deck structures. At this plant was 30e40 min from the laboratory, where the specimens
aim, experimental tests have been carried out on slab decks with where prepared. The concrete rheology was measured before
three different concrete mixes, also in presence of lightweight ag- starting the casting procedure through a slump flow test, carried
gregates, with and without fiber reinforcement. The full-scale out according to Ref. [10]. The measured diameters were 680 mm,
specimens are subjected to punching action and the effectiveness 620 mm and 760 mm for OC, L-MSW and L-FRC-MSW mixes,
of the different material solutions are remarked. Finally, the effec- respectively.
tiveness and feasibility of recent code formulations [16] for the
examined cases are discussed.
2.2. Materials characterization
2. Material properties and characterization
The average concrete strength measured on four cubes having a
Three full-scale tests of bridge decks subjected to punching side of 150 mm, at different curing times, is reported in Table 2. The
shear are carried out. Each specimen is characterized by a different last date corresponds to the test age. It can be noted after 28 days
concrete mix and the material influence on the global behavior of the OC and L-MSW mixes exhibit comparable strengths (differ-
the slabs is analyzed and discussed, with particular reference to the ences lower than 1.6%). A lower value of compressive strength is
effect of the fiber reinforcement. Besides one ordinary reinforced measured for the fiber reinforced mixes (about 10%), but this dif-
concrete slab, two elements are cast with a lightweight concrete ference becomes negligible with the time. In particular after 160
(with structural expanded clay aggregate LECA 0e15 mm) and with days from the cast (date of the test), the compressive strengths of
addition of ashes coming from the burning of Municipal Solid the L-MSW and L-FRC-MSW mixes are almost the same (65.6 MPa
Waste. In one specimen, steel fiber reinforcement is also added. and 65 MPa, respectively).
The tensile behavior of the fiber reinforced material was char-
2.1. Concrete mixes acterized through flexural test on beams (150  150  600 mm3),
according to Ref. [11].
Three concrete mixes are cast and adopted in the present The nominal stress e CMOD diagrams measured on six speci-
research: mens are shown in Fig. 1. The Limit of Proportionality strength fL
and the reference strength values fR1, fR2, fR3 and fR4, defined by

Ordinary concrete (OC); MC2010 and related to Crack Mouth Opening Displacements

Lightweight concrete with ash from municipal solid waste (L- (CMOD) equal to 0.5, 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5, are remarked in the same
MSW); figure.

Lightweight fiber-reinforced concrete with ashes from munic- The slabs are reinforced with 20 mm diameter steel rebars, type
ipal solid waste (L-FRC-MSW). B450C, according to the Italian Code [8]. All the bars came from the
same production and the tensile behavior is characterized through
The components amount of the mixes were chosen in order to tensile tests on three specimens. The average yielding and ultimate
achieve, for the three materials, similar performances and work- strengths are equal to 520 MPa and 650 MPa, respectively. The
ability. Then, the lower strength of the aggregates in the light- Young’s modulus is equal to 210 GPa.
weight concretes was balanced by higher matrix strength, obtained
with higher binder quantity.
The combination of lightweight aggregate and fiber reinforce- Table 2
ment allows keeping the material density equal or lower than the Concretes compressive mechanical properties. In the table, the reference compres-
sive strengths (measured after 28 days from the cast) are bolded.
ordinary concrete (Table 1), while the adoption of lightweight
concrete in slab L-MSW gives a dead load reduction of about 12%, Time (days) Mean concrete cubic strength Rc [MPa]
with respect to the OC element (Table 1). This aspect is an impor- OC L-MSW L-FRC-MSW
tant factor in bridge decks.
3 36.06 33.55 34.33
The fiber reinforced concrete is characterized by the addition of 7 46.81 47.50 42.50
30 kg/m3 of hooked steel fibers with length (l) equal to 30 mm and 14 53.12 51.14 47.27
diameter (d) of 0.30 mm (aspect ratio l/d equal to 100). The steel 28 57.63 58.56 52.77
wire strength is higher than 2000 MPa. 50 58.18 62.0 56.0
160 e 65.6 65.00
The mix design for the concretes used in the experimental
 A. Caratelli et al. / Composites Part B 99 (2016) 257e265 259

Fig. 1. FRC tensile characterization: results of the flexural test [11] and mean values of reference strengths.

3. Experimental program water evaporation.

The slab was placed on the supports, made with steel 4
A common typology for bridge deck is characterized by a con- 100 mm bars with a span of 2 m (Fig. 2c). The load was applied in
crete slab supported by girders (steel or prestressed R/C beams) the centre by means of a hydraulic jack with a maximum loading
spaced of 2e3 m. A typical thickness for the deck is 200 mm. The capacity of 4000 kN (Fig. 2a). A square steel plate with a side of
part of the deck between longitudinal and transverse girders can be 400 mm [9] was located between the jack and the slab (Fig. 2a).
considered as a slab supported along the borders. This situation can The slab deformation was monitored with a set-up of trans-
be easily reproduced in a laboratory. Anyway, the obtained results ducers as shown in Fig. 3. Two transducers (POT G1 and POT G2,
can be extended to the situation of longitudinal girders, only [17]. Fig. 3a) were used for measuring the relative displacement between
Punching tests have been carried out on square slabs with a side the loading plate and the slab. Five transducers (POT1-POT5,
of 2.40 m and a thickness of 200 mm. Steel rebars, whose properties Fig. 3a) were placed along the supports in order to measure the
are summarised in Section 2.2, with a diameter equal to 20 mm and displacement along the slab edges; seven wire transducers (W1-
200 mm spaced are placed in the upper and lower part in both the W7, Fig. 3b) were placed on the lower side of the slab in order to
directions (Fig. 2b). The concrete cover was equal to 30 mm. As measure the vertical displacement.
mentioned before, no transverse reinforcement was placed in the
slab, as typically occurs in the bridges.
Since curing was carried out at ambient temperature and hu- 4. Test results
midity, a plastic coating was placed on the surface in order to limit
The evolution of the crack pattern detected during the tests for

Fig. 2. a) Test set-up; b) specimen detail; c) support detail.

260 A. Caratelli et al. / Composites Part B 99 (2016) 257e265

Fig. 3. Measurement devices: a) potentiometer transducers; b) wire transducers (bottom surface).

the three slabs are summarised in Fig. 4, for three load levels. transducers and by the potentiometer transducer POT4 (Fig. 3a) at
In all the tests, the first cracks developed in the bottom surface different load levels. It is noted that similar displacement patterns
starting from the region underneath the loading area. Then the are registered for OC and L-MSW slabs during the whole loading
cracks propagated diagonally to the corner; more cracks developed history, while significant increase of deformation was recorded in
in the bottom surface forming the classical punching critical zone. the fiber reinforced slab, always more pronounced with the load
Ultimately, both flexural and punching cracks formed and increase.
opened. This peculiar aspect is more visible in the L-FRC-MSW slab, Finally, at the end of the tests, the slabs were cut in the midspan
where the bending and shear punching cracks are easily detectable. and the failure surfaces were analyzed (Fig. 9).
Even if the failure is governed by the punching shear, a diffusion of As evidenced in Fig. 7, and confirmed in Fig. 9, the addition of
flexural cracks takes place in the central zone of the punching cone municipal solid waste to the ordinary concrete does not provide
(Fig. 5). This phenomenon was highlighted after the test, with a cut significant difference in the final global behavior. The punching
of the specimen, as specified in the following. volumes of OC and L-MSW specimens present similar dimension
All the specimens failed for punching shear, and the typical and only slight differences of the angle of the main cracks limiting
punching cone formed, as shown in Fig. 6. Finally, spalling of the the punching surface, can be noted. On the contrary, the steel fibers
concrete was observed, mainly in the MSW slab (Fig. 6c). allow the crack diffusion and an increase of the punching volume,
The displacements measured by the transducer named W3, as observed in Fig. 9.
located in the slab midspan (Fig. 3b) are plotted versus the load in
Fig. 7. The maximum loads (i.e. the slabs bearing capacity) and the 5. Comparison with code provisions
ultimate displacements are summarised in Table 3.
The three slabs exhibited almost the same value of the initial The obtained experimental results are compared with the
stiffness. (Fig. 7). The specimen L-MSW presented a slightly lower theoretical values predicted by MC2010 [16]. This code provides
punching resistance (9%), with respect to the reference slab (OC), formulations for both the cases of punching shear for ordinary
due to the presence of lightweight aggregate [16]. reinforced concrete and fiber reinforced concrete. Obviously, in the
The addition of steel fibers (L-FRC-MSW slab) leads to an in- analytical evaluations, all the safety coefficients are assumed equal
crease of the punching strength of about 48% with respect to the OC to one and the mean experimental values are considered for the
specimen and of about 57% with respect of the L-MSW slab. This strength.
increase is higher than the ones obtained in previous researches In MC2010, the punching shear resistance is assumed as:
[17] due to the use of high performance steel fibers (mainly high
pffiffiffiffi
wire strength), leading to higher values of the tensile residual fc
strengths (Fig. 1). VRd;c ¼ kj b $d SI units (1)
gc 0
The increase of the maximum load of the L-FRC-MSW slab is
coupled with an increase of the maximum displacement of about where, in our case, gc ¼ 1, b0 is the critical perimeter considered at a
250% with respect to the OC slab. distance equal to d/2 from the loaded area (Fig. 10); kj depends on
Fig. 8 shows the slab deformation, measured by the wire the rotation of the slab around the support region (j, Fig. 10, and
 A. Caratelli et al. / Composites Part B 99 (2016) 257e265 261

Fig. 4. Evolution of the crack pattern: a) OC slab; b) L-MSW slab; c) L-FRC-MSW slab.

Fig. 5. L-FRC-MSW test: a) flexural cracks on the lateral surface; b) crack pattern at the bottom surface; c) end of the test: crack pattern inside the slab.
262 A. Caratelli et al. / Composites Part B 99 (2016) 257e265

Fig. 6. Punching failure: a) steel plate punching; b) OC: bottom surface; c) L-MSW bottom surface; d) L-FRC-MSW bottom surface.

Fig. 7. Test results: load-midspan displacement (W3 transducer, Fig. 3b) curves.

Table 3 Eqs.(4) and (5)) and is calculated as:

Test results: collapse load and displacement.
1
Specimen Ultimate punching load [kN] Ultimate displacement [mm] kj ¼  0:6; (2)
1:5 þ 0:6$j$d$kdg
OC 914 22
L-MSW 862 19
L-FRC-MSW 1354 78 being:
d the effective depth, kdg a parameter accounting for the size of
the aggregate particles. If the maximum size of the aggregate dg is
 A. Caratelli et al. / Composites Part B 99 (2016) 257e265 263

Fig. 8. Displacement along the slab length at different load levels and final crack pattern at bottom side; a) OC; b) L-MSW; c) L-FRC-MSW.

higher than 16 mm, kdg ¼ 1, otherwise

32
kdg ¼  0:75 (3)
16 þ dg
According to MC2010, in case of lightweight concrete, i.e. for
slabs L-MSW and L-FRC-MSW, the value dg should be assumed
equal to zero, since the aggregate particles may break, resulting in a
reduced aggregate interlock contribution.
The rotation j at failure, around the loaded area, can be evalu-
ated considering two different situations. In a Level I approxima-
tion, (flat slab designed according to an elastic analysis) it can be
Fig. 9. Punching failure. assumed:

Fig. 10. Critical perimeter bo and slab rotation j (Ref. [16]).

264 A. Caratelli et al. / Composites Part B 99 (2016) 257e265

Table 4
Comparison between the MC2010 formulation and the experimental collapse loads.

Specimen Experimental punching load [kN] Theoretical load (MC2010) [kN] e Level Theoretical load (MC2010) [kN] e Level
I II

OC 914 834 (8.8%) 900 (1.5%)

dg ¼ 0 dg ¼ 15 mm dg ¼ 0 dg ¼ 15 mm
L-MSW 862 603 (-30%) 887 (þ2.7%) 769 (-10.8%) 933 (þ8.2%)

L-FRC-MSW 1354 1109 (-18%) 1392 (þ2.8%) 1276 (-5.8%) 1440 (þ6.3%)

fFtuk is the characteristic value of the ultimate residual tensile

r f strength of FRC by considering the ultimate crack opening
j ¼ 1:5 s y (4)
d Es wu. ¼ 1.5 mm, and then fFtuk ¼ fR3/3.
This kind of approach, suitable to account for the fiber contri-
being: bution in the punching shear resistance, was firstly proposed in
rs the position where the radial bending moment is zero, with Ref. [17].
respect to the column axis, assumed, in agreement with the code The comparison between the experimental and analytical
equal to 0.22 L (L side of the slab), fy and Es the yielding stress and punching loads is shown in Table 4, with reference to the Level I and
Young modulus of the steel. Level II of approximation. For the OC slab, the MC2010 formulations
When a significant bending moment redistribution is consid- appear very effective in predicting the experimental values. Dif-
ered, Level II of approximation can be adopted, and the rotation can ferences between measured and theoretical values of about 9% and
be evaluated as: 1.5% are found for Level I and Level II approaches, respectively.
  Instead, for the lightweight concrete specimens L-MSW, for
rs fy mEd 1:5 which the kdg coefficient, according to MC2010, has to be assumed
j ¼ 1:5 (5)
d E mRd equal to zero, the code provisions appear very conservative for
approximation Level I, being the theoretical value reduced of about
where: 30% with respect to the experimental one. This difference decreases
mEd is the average moment acting per unit length and mRd is the if the Level II of approximation in adopted (see Table 4). Never-
average design resistant moment per unit length. theless, in the tested lightweight slabs (both L-MSW and L-FRC-
The contribution of the fiber reinforcement to the punching MSW), the aggregate particles did not break (see Fig. 9), and no
shear, according to MC2010 is added to the general strength: significant reduction of aggregate interlock contribution appeared.
For this reason, in the same Table 4, the punching shear load is
VRd;F ¼ VRd;c þ VRd;f (6) further evaluated by assuming the kdg coefficient related to the
maximum size of the lightweight aggregate (15 mm) with Eq. (3). In
where VRd,c represents the punching shear strength evaluated for this case, the MC2010 provisions for L-MSW slab are closer to the
the ordinary reinforced concrete slab and VRd,f represents the experimental values, even if slightly higher.
design shear strength due to the fibers. This latter, may be taken as With reference to the L-FRC MSW slab, due to the fiber contri-
bution, the effect of the aggregate dimensions is reduced, and the
fFtuk
VRd;f ¼ b0 $d (7) differences between theoretical and experimental values are lower,
gF with a maximum gap of 18%, occurring for Level I and dg ¼ 0, and a
minimum one of 2.8% for Level I and dg ¼ 15 mm (see Table 4).
where: Then, the Model Code approach appears suitable and reliable for
gF is the material partial safety factor for concrete, here set equal evaluating the punching shear resistance for fiber reinforced con-
to one, b0 is the shear perimeter control evaluated in the ordinary crete slabs.
reinforced concrete [in mm, Fig. 10], d is the mean value of the On the basis of the discussed results, for lightweight concrete, it
flexural effective depth for the x- and y- direction [in mm].

a) b)
Fig. 11. Influence of the diameter aggregate on the punching load: a) L-MSW slab; b) L-FRC-MSW slab.
 A. Caratelli et al. / Composites Part B 99 (2016) 257e265 265

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