Punching Shear Strength of Reinforced Concrete Slabs without Transverse Reinforcement

A mechanical explanation of the phenomenon of punching shear in slabs without transverse reinforcement is presented on the basis of the opening of a critical shear crack. It leads to the formulation of a new failure criterion for punching shear based on the rotation of a slab. This criterion correctly describes punching shear failures observed in experimental testing, even in slabs with low reinforcement ratios. Its application requires the knowledge of the load-rotation relationship of the slab, for which a simple mechanical model is proposed. The resulting approach is shown to give better results than current design codes, with a very low coefficient of variation (COV). Parametric studies demonstrate that it…

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