A Study on Shear Reinforcement of Exterior Joints for Flat Plate

The purpose of this research was to study the response of slab-column connections containing various types of shear reinforcement when subjected to the combination of gravitational and lateral cyclic loads. The three test specimens were full-scale representations of exterior slabcolumn connections of a prototype apartment building in Korea. The control specimen had no shear reinforcements, while the other specimens had CS-Bar and SS-Bar as shear reinforcements. The control specimen failed due to the punching shear around the slab-column connection at 4.0% drift. None of the specimens with shear reinforcement experienced punching shear failure up to 4.4% drift. The two types of slab shear reinforcements proved to be equally effective in resisting punching shear failure of these connections subjected to relatively low levels of gravity load. The presence of shear reinforcements significantly increased the lateral load ductility of the connections. The test results showed that the strength and ductility of the specimens with SS-Bar and CS-Bar were improved by 23% and 15% compared to the specimen without shear reinforcements.