The behavior of tapered one-way continuous two-span reinforced concrete slabs under repeated load

Abstract

The scope of this study is to look at the effect of supplying a non-prismatic cross-section on the flexural strength of one-way continuous slabs reinforced concrete (RC) with two spans under repeated load. The research aims to study the ability of non-prismatic slabs to increase flexural stiffness which leads to saving construction costs. For this purpose, experimental investigations were carried out; the work consisted of fabrication and testing six two-span RC slabs with the same volume of concrete. Two of them were prismatic with a constant depth, while all the others were non-prismatic with tapered cross-sections having varying depth. Prismatic slabs were stiffer than non-prismatic slabs in all support settings, according to the findings.  It is found that providing a tapered slab with a positive or a negative haunch has an insignificant effect on the bearing capacity for a prismatic slab. On the other hand, the tapered slab led to increase the deflection at service load compared to the prismatic slab.