Analysis and Design of SFRC Slabs

Abstract

The inclusion of the steel fibers in the concrete at the time of its production leads to a significant improvement of strength properties of the concrete, especially the residual-tensile strength and the toughness. Its use in the thin flexural members, such as slabs, etc. is found to be more effective because of the smaller slab thickness (in comparison to the beams, etc.) that acquires a preferential fiber orientation along its length and breadth, and consequentially leads to a favorable alignment of the steel fibers along the principle directions of the moment trajectories. It is an established fact the flexural resistance of the SFRC slab-system did not change even if the conventional reinforcement in the slab section was totally dispensed with and it was replaced with a suitably designed dose of the steel fibers in the concrete mix. This chapter presents the details of the limit analysis. An improved theoretical formulation and the design procedure is also presented to proportion the SFRC slab-system along with a set of the design charts for their quick proportioning.