An Experimental Study on Shear Reinforcement Methods of Interior Flat Plate-Column Connections

This research is an experimental study on full-scale interior slab-column connections of flat-plate. Three types of shear reinforcements were proposed to prevent brittle punching shear failure that could result in collapse of whole flat plate structures. A series of four flat plate specimens including a specimen without shear reinforcement and three specimens with the reinforcements was tested. The dimension of the slabs was 2620*2725*180mm and the specimens had a 600*800mm square column at the center of the slabs. The slabs were tested up to failure using monotonic vertical shear forces. The presences of the shear reinforcements substantially increased punching shear capacity and ductility of the interior slab-column connections.