Residual strength and toughness after impact loading for RC slabs strengthened with different layers of geogrid

Abstract

This study presents an experiment for investigating the residual strength and toughness of reinforced concrete, RC, and slab reinforced by a geogrid as shrinkage reinforcement along with lower tensile steel reinforcement. Three different parameters were considered, slab thickness, number of geogrid layers, and thickness of the upper concrete cover. Fifteen slab samples with sizes of 50 × 50 cm exposed to the impact load on its center before being re-load by the static load and six slab samples exposed to the static load only. The load and deflection relation were recorded through the static loading process for all specimens, where loading capacity, toughness, and toughness index were measured. The results show an enhancement in the slabs residual strength as the slab thickness and concrete cover increased. On the other hand, the residual strength of slabs has a remarkable decrease with the increase in geogrid layers. Moreover, the toughness has a positive relationship with the concrete cover and has an inverse relation with the slab thickness and the number of layers. A geogrid reduced the number and distribution of cracks and mitigated their severity, especially for double layers with the same concrete cover.