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Experimental investigation on structural behaviour of RC beam-slab

assemblies against progressive collapse

Conference Paper · November 2017

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 6th International Conference on Design and Analysis of Protective Structures (DAPS2017)
29 November - 01December 2017, Melbourne, Australia

Experimental investigation on structural behaviour of RC beam-slab assemblies

against progressive collapse
Jun Yu1*, Li Zhong Luo2
1*
College of Civil & Transportation Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, China (yujun@hhu.edu.cn)
2
College of Civil & Transportation Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, China (llz_sc@163.com)

ABSTRACT
In order to resist the action of gravity load due to the loss of original load transfer paths under
progressive collapse scenarios, the slabs and beams of reinforced concrete (RC) structures play a significant
role. The beam-slab assemblies may have a large potential of structural resistance beyond the yield line
capacities which are based on pure flexural mechanisms. Therefore, in this paper, an experimental program
is proposed to investigate structural resistance, failure modes, load transfer mechanisms of RC beam-slab
assemblies under a perimeter middle column removal scenario. Accordingly, two 3/10 scaled beam-slab
assembly specimens are designed in accordance with Chinese code for the moderate and high seismic
regions. The slabs are designed with the same reinforcement detailing, but the dimensions and the
reinforcement of the beams for the two specimens are different. Moreover, the test rig is designed as a static
determinate system, so that the structural internal forces and load distribution can be determined. During the
test, a 12-point loading protocol will be employed to represent uniformly distributed loading, and the lateral
restraints from the adjacent slab panels to the tested beam-slab assemblies will be provided. The results
indicate that with three boundaries constrained, the beam-slab assembly was able to redistribute the gravity
load mainly through flexural action of the beams and compressive membrane action of the slabs at small
deflections and catenary action of the longitudinal beams and tensile membrane action of the slabs at large
deflections.

Keywords: Reinforced concrete, Beam-slab assembly, Progressive collapse, Structural behavior

1. Introduction

With the increasing threat from the terrorist attacks and the uprising interest in robustness of structures
against human errors, progressive collapse performance of structures becomes the concern of government
agencies and structural engineers. As it is hard to quantify the threats or accidents, threat-independent
approaches to conduct progressive collapse analysis are preferred, which have been introduced into design
guidelines[1-3]. Since progressive collapse is caused by failure to re-distribute the gravity load, beams and
slabs are the primary structural members to be concerned.

As progressive collapse is a low probability and severe consequence event, minimising the cost to resist
progressive collapse is favoured. One of strategies is to make full use of the reserved structural resistance of
beams and slabs. Over the last decade, for reinforced concrete (RC) framed structures, a great many research
has been dedicated to structural behaviour of RC beam-column assemblies under different column removal
scenarios [4-11], and each scenario corresponds to a unique boundary condition. The results demonstrated
that RC beams have large potential resistance on top of conventional flexural capacity.

As in cast-in-situ framed structures, slabs and beams are monolithically cast, and thus ignoring slabs
underestimates the progressive collapse resistance of structures. Consequently, in recent years more research
has been conducted on structural behaviour of RC beam-slab assemblies under column removal
scenarios[12-19]. The results show that slabs significantly increase progressive collapse resistance of
assemblies through flexural or compressive membrane action at small deflection and tensile membrane
action (TMA) at large deflection. Among all the parameters that affect structural behaviour of RC beam-slab
assemblies, the boundary conditions and the loading approaches are the two most critical parameters.

In this paper, the focus was given on RC beam-slab assemblies subjected to perimeter middle column
removal scenario because perimeter columns are more susceptible to accidental loading due to public
accessibility. As a result, two 3/10 scaled RC beam-slab assemblies, which consisted of two slab panels and
seven beams, were designed and fabricated. A static determinate test rig was set up to simulate the boundary
restraints from the adjacent slab panels to the affected beam-slab assemblies and the uniformly distributed
load. The experimental results indicate that the beam-slab RC assembly could develop structural resistance
much larger than the nominal yield capacity, and the development of structural resistance depended much on
the rotational capacity of RC beams.

2. Test program

2.1 Specimen design

To investigate the progressive collapse performance of RC beam-slab sub-structures, two specimens

were designed in accordance with Chinese code for RC structures and seismicity. The prototype of the
specimens were located in a ten-story RC framed structures with 6 spans and 4 bays at each plan. The story
height was 3.3m and 3.0m for the first story and the rest stories, respectively. The span length at the two
orthogonal directions was 6m. The dead load and live load used for structure design was 5.0kN/m2 and
2.0kN/m2, respectively. One building was designed under the seismicity of 6 degree with peak ground
acceleration (i.e. PGA) of 0.05g. The other building was designed with PGA of 0.2g.

6000 6000 6000 6000 6000 6000

6000
6000
6000
6000
Removed edge column Region to be tested
(a) Isotropic view (b) Plan view
Fig. 1 Prototype of the specimens

After a perimeter middle column is removed, the directly affected region is enclosed by the red box, as
indicated in Fig. 1(b). However, due to the space limit in the laboratory, the specimens were scaled down
from the prototype structural members with a factor of 3/10. The two specimens are respectively denoted as
PM-01 and PM-02. As shown in Fig. 2, each specimen consisted of two slab panels, two longitudinal beams
KL1 (namely, two-bay longitudinal beam) and two KL2 in x-direction, and three transverse beams KL3 in y-
direction, as well as the slab flanges along the three boundaries that are used to represent the continuity of
slabs from the adjacent panels.

PM-01 and PM-02 had the same slab thickness and the slab reinforcement detailing, as shown in Fig. 2.
The slab thickness was 54mm and the corresponding concrete cover was 5mm. Two layers of orthogonal
reinforcement with diameter of 6mm were uniformly placed with a centre-to-centre spacing of 160mm
throughout the entire slab panels. The slab reinforcement was high strength ribbed bar (denoted by letter "T")
with the nominal yield strength of 400MPa. The material properties of reinforcement used for the two
specimens were listed in Table 1, and the compressive strength of concrete was 28.36MPa based on standard
cylinder tests.

Fig. 3 demonstrates the reinforcement detailing in the beams of PM-01. Beam KL1, KL2 and KL3 had
the same arrangement of stirrups and the cross sections with 150mm in depth and 90mm in width. The closed
hoops R4 was placed at the beam ends with spacing of 80mm to increase confinement to concrete and the
ductility, and 160mm at the mid-span region. "R" denotes plain round bar. For beam KL1, the longitudinal
reinforcement with 2T8 both at the top and the bottom was throughout the entire beam. For beam KL2 and
KL3, the bottom reinforcement was 2T8, and the top reinforcement was 3T8 at the joint region with one bar
curtailed at 630mm from the adjacent column axis. In comparison, the cross-section of beams was
180mm×90mm in specimen PM-02, and all the longitudinal reinforcement in the beams was replaced by T10.
 6th International Conference on Design and Analysis of Protective Structures (DAPS2017)
29 November - 01December 2017, Melbourne, Australia

Moreover, the spacing of the stirrups at the beams and the mid-span were changed to 50mm and 100mm,
respectively.
4200
300 1800 1800 300

300
Slab flange h=54mm

280

Top Reinf.

Bottom Reinf.
Beam KL2

T6@160
T6@160
500
T6@160
Bottom Reinf.

2100
Beam KL3

Beam KL3

Beam KL3
Slab

1800
h=54mm Slab
500 500
T6@160 T6@160
T6@160
Top Reinf. Top Reinf.
Top Reinf.
Top Reinf.
T6@160

Column stub
500

Y (165x165)
Beam KL1

X
Fig. 2 Layout of specimen PM-01 (unit: mm)

1990 1990
630 630
Steel plate A A A B A B

A A A C C B A B
Steel plate R4@80 R4@160 R4@80 R4@80 R4@160 R4@80
560 480 560 560 480 560
190 1800 1800 190

Beam KL1 Beam KL2

2080
R6@70 8T12 630 820
2T8 1T8 2T8
B A B
R6@70
2T8 2T8
150

180
150

B A B
90 90 180
R4@80 R4@160 R4@80
560 480 560
Section A-A Section B-B Section C-C 1800 190
Beam KL3
Fig. 3 Reinforcement detailing in the beams (unit: mm)

Table 1 Material properties of reinforcement

Type Actual diameter Elastic modulus Yield strength Ultimate tensile Ultimate Elongation
(mm) (MPa) (MPa) strength (MPa) strain ratio*
R4 3.345 -- 646 1045 -- 0.05
T6 6.06 187000 451 576 0.123 0.23
T8 7.93 180700 424 623 0.127 0.26
T10 9.57 188000 464 615 0.145 0.20
* Elongation ratio is evaluated based on the gauge length of 50mm.

2.2 Test set-up

The test set-up is shown in Fig. 4. The specimen was supported by five steel columns and 11 inclined
supports. The steel columns were used to simulate the vertical framed columns, and one end of the steel
column was bolted to an RC column stub of the specimen and the other end was pinned to the ground beams
which were anchored to the strong floor. The inclined supports were used to simulate the vertical and
horizontal restraints from the adjacent slabs. A tension-compression load cell was installed in each inclined
support to measure the corresponding reaction force.
 Fig. 4 Overview of test set-up

A hydraulic jack fixed against a reaction beam clamped by a portal frame was employed to apply load
onto a primary steel distribution beam, and then the load was further evenly distributed to two secondary
beams, eventually to the four triangular steel plates. The positions of the triangular steel plates are shown in
Fig. 5. Since the load acted at the centroid of each steel plate, the load at the three supports of the plate was
equal. Following the aforementioned loading distribution system, a concentrated load from the hydraulic jack
can be converted into 12-point load, which can approximately represent the uniformly distributed load acting
on a slab[12].

1800

1800 1800
Fig. 5 Positions of loading points (unit: mm)

The details of boundary restraints are shown in Fig. 6. A rectangular-hollow section beam was welded
with two steel plates to form a channel, which can be used to connect slab flanges with a series of bolts
transversely going through the two steel plates and the slab flanges. Moreover, a bolt was extended from the
beam and bolted to a steel plate that was connected to a channel with two triangular stiffeners. Inclined
supports were connected to the rectangular-hollow section beam and ground beams with pin connections.

Rectangular-hollow Bolts
section beam

Steel plates
Ground
beam

Inclined support with

Stiffeners pin-pin connections
Fig. 6 Details of boundary restraints
 6th International Conference on Design and Analysis of Protective Structures (DAPS2017)
29 November - 01December 2017, Melbourne, Australia

2.3 Instrumentation

The applied load was measured by a load cell installed between the hydraulic jack and the reaction
beam. Five supporting columns were made of steel tubes, and similar to previous work[12], four steel strain
gages were mounted onto the section at the mid-height of each column to measure reaction axial force.
Besides the extensive displacement measurement along the longitudinal perimeter beams and the transverse
beam connected to the removed column stub, the displacement at the boundaries were measured as well.

3. Experimental results

3.1 Load-deflection relationship

At the current stage, only the test on specimen PM-01 was finished, and thus the experimental results
are solely for PM01. Fig. 7 shows the load-deflection curve of PM-01. The first peak capacity is around
195kN, and the ultimate capacity prior to failure is 197kN. The calculated flexural capacity based on the
yield-line theory is 132kN, and the calculation will be explained later. Due to concrete crushing at the far
beam ends, which were near the boundary restraints, the structural resistance gradually decreased with
increasing the deflection. Moreover, the shear failure at the beam ends further reduced structural capacity.
With the mobilization of catenary action of beams in the longitudinal beams and tensile membrane action of
slabs, the structural resistance re-ascended, but eventually terminated at the deflection around 350mm due to
the punching shear failure at the slab boundary.
250

Shear failure at
longitudinal beam ends
200

150 Punching shear

Load (kN)

failure at slab
Flexural capacity of 132kN boundary
100

50

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Vertical displacement of column stub (mm)
Fig. 7 Load resistance curve of specimen PM01

3.2 Crack pattern and failure modes

Fig. 8(a) and (b) respectively show the crack pattern at the top and the bottom of the slab after failure of
specimen PM01. At the top, the cracks intensively developed around the three perimeters of the two slab
panels, which formed very distinct so-called compressive ring. Outside the ring, the split crack due to
compression was evident. Moreover, cracks were more concentrated at region near the far beam ends of the
longitudinal beams. The punching shear failure occurred at one of supporting points of triangular plates, as
indicated in Fig. 8(a). In comparison, the cracks were more extensively distributed at the bottom slab surface,
but the cracks along the two diagonals of the slab panels were more dominant.

Fig. 9 shows the failure modes of longitudinal beam. At the plastic hinge regions denoted by B and C
near the perimeter middle joint, cracks uniformly formed mainly due to the positive bending moment. At the
plastic hinge regions A and D near the far beam ends, the shear (inclined) cracks were more dominant.
Moreover, with the mobilization of axial tension, the shear capacity at these local regions can be further
reduced. As a result, the region D eventually formed a very large wide shear crack.

Fig. 10 demonstrates the failure mode of transverse beam. It can be seen that the beam end connected
the boundary beam behaved as a conventional plastic hinge with severe concrete crushing at the bottom side.
However, near the end connected to the column stub above the removed column, there was only two fine
cracks, indicating there was no hinge formed. This conclusion is further confirmed by the strain gauge
reading at this position.
 Compressive
ring
Location of
punching shear

(a) At top

(b) At bottom
Fig. 8 Crack patterns of slabs after failure of PM01

A D

B C
Fig. 9 Failure mode of longitudinal beam of PM01

Concrete
Crushing

No severe
failure
Fig. 10 Failure mode of transverse beam of PM01
 6th International Conference on Design and Analysis of Protective Structures (DAPS2017)
29 November - 01December 2017, Melbourne, Australia

3.3 Overall deflection of beams

Fig. 11(a) shows that the deflection of the two-bay longitudinal beam is quite symmetric. Moreover, the
slope (i.e. rotation) at the far beam ends is the largest and the one near the column stub is the smallest,
suggesting the greatest local rotation at the far beam ends. This is confirmed by the failure mode that local
failure was concentrated at the far beam ends of the two-bay longitudinal beam. Fig. 11(b) demonstrates that
the deflection curve of the transverse beam is double-curvature, suggesting negative moment at the far beam
ends and positive moment at the beam end connected to the column stub.
0 0
Vertical displacement (mm)

50
50

Vertical displacement (mm)

100
Far beam end
100
150

200 150

250
Far beam end Far beam end 200 defl.=50mm
300 defl.=100mm
Column stub defl.=50mm defl.=100mm defl.=150mm Column stub
350 250
defl.=150mm defl.=200mm defl.=200mm
defl.=250mm defl.=300mm defl.=300mm
400
300
-1500 -1000 -500 0 500 1000 1500 0 400 800 1200 1600 2000
Locations wrt middle column stub (mm) Locations wrt the fixed end of transverse beam (mm)
(a) Longitudinal beam (b)Transverse beam
Fig. 11 Deflection curve of the beams

3.4 Displacements and reactions at the boundary of longitudinal beam

Fig. 12(a) shows the monitored displacement at the restraints connected to the longitudinal beam. It is
found that the beam moved out (positive values of BDH) first and then moved in. During moving out (say,
prior to vertical displacement of 150mm), the horizontal reaction provided by the inclined support was
approximately zero, as shown in Fig. 12(b). This reflects the connection gaps at the boundary restraints.
However, with the beam end moving in, the horizontal reaction provided by the inclined supports quickly
increased, indicating the development of catenary action. Fig. 12(a) also demonstrates that the beam ends
moved up (positive values of BDV) first and gradually moved back to original horizon at large deflection,
suggesting the rotational restraints at the boundaries were weak.
10 40
Horizontal/Vertical displacement of restraints (mm)

Restraint at the left end of two-bay longitudinal beam

Rection force from inclined supports (kN)

Restraint at the right end of two-bay longitudinal beam

5
30

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 20

BDH-01(mm)
-5 BDV-02(mm)
BDH-13(mm) 10
BDV-14(mm)
-10

0
-15

-10
-20 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Vertical displacement of column stub (mm) Vertical displacement of column stub (mm)
(a) Displacement (b) Reaction force
Fig. 12 Displacement and reaction at the ends of two-bay longitudinal beam of PM01

3.5 Reaction forces at the supporting columns

Fig. 13 shows that under the applied uniformly distributed load, the reaction of Column C was the
largest prior to the deflection of 200mm, indicating that the flexural action of the transverse beam connected
to the column stub contributed the largest resistance. However, with increasing the deflection, the reaction
forces at Columns A and E quickly increased and eventually exceeded the one at Column C, suggesting the
rising resistance contribution from the longitudinal beams due to catenary action.
 120
Column A
Column B

Axial force of supporting columns (kN)

Column C
100
Column D
Column E

80

60

40

20

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Vertical displacement of column stub (mm)
Fig. 13 Distribution of axial force in supporting columns of PM01

4 Flexural resistance of assembly

In accordance with the above experimental results, the dominant yield lines of the slab panels and the
locations of beam plastic hinges are shown in Fig. 14. It should be pointed out that the only one plastic hinge
formed at the transverse beam.

Lx═3600

M' b m' sy
45°
Ly═1800

m' sx
msy θ 1═ θ m' sx
msx

M' b Mb δ M' b

θ θ
δ
Negative yield line Negative plastic hinge
Positive yield line
Positive plastic hinge
Fig. 14 Yield-Line pattern of specimen PM01 (unit: mm)

Based on the virtual work method, the applied UDL wy at the yield stage of the slab is determined as
follows:
= wy
3
2 L3y
( 2msx Ly + 2msy Ly + 2msx′ Ly + 2msy′ Ly + 2M bx + 2M bx′ + M by′ ) (1)

where m sx , m' sx , m sy and m' sy are the bending moment resistance per unit width of the slabs along the x- and
y-directions, respectively; M bx , M' bx and M' by are the positive and negative bending moment resistance.
Similar to the way to determine the sectional moment resistance[12, 18], in accordance with the
reinforcement detailing as shown in Fig. 3 and the measured yield strength of reinforcement and the
compressive strength of concrete, the flexural capacity of m sx , m' sx , m sy and m' sy is 3.54kNm/m, M bx and
M' bx of the longitudinal beam is 5.20kNm, and M' by of the transverse beam is 7.45kNm. As a result, the
corresponding wy is 20.38kN/m2, and the total load is 132kN. Therefore, the experimental first peak load
exceeded 48% of the yield capacity. Even if the strain hardening with the ultimate strength of 1.25f y is used,
the corresponding flexural capacity of the assembly is 165kN, which is still less than the first peak capacity.
This indicates that the load transfer mechanism of compressive membrane action of slabs could play a role.
 6th International Conference on Design and Analysis of Protective Structures (DAPS2017)
29 November - 01December 2017, Melbourne, Australia

5. Conclusions

In this paper, an experimental program was conducted to investigate the structural behaviour of
reinforced concrete (RC) beam-slab assemblies under a perimeter middle column removal scenario. Two
3/10 scaled specimens were designed in accordance with Chinese codes and the results of one specimen were
systematically demonstrated. The main conclusions are shown as follows:

(1) The failure modes of the slab shows evident compressive ring and yield lines, corresponding to the
development of tensile membrane action at large deflection. Moreover, at large deflection, the inclined
supports at the ends of the longitudinal beams developed large tension, corresponding to mobilization of
catenary action of two-bay longitudinal beam. When the deflection was small, the flexural action of
transverse beams and the compressive membrane action of slabs contributed more resistance, resulting in the
first peak load exceeded 48% of the yield capacity.

(2) Under uniformly distributed load, the local failure was mainly concentrated at the far ends of the
longitudinal and transverse beams that connected to the stub above the removed column. Note that shear
failure occurred at one longitudinal beam end. Near the middle joint, the longitudinal beam developed
uniformly flexural cracks without concrete crushing because the slab functioned as compressive flanges.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to acknowledge the final support by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (No. 51408189); the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2014B17914,
2017B41814); and Qing Lan Project.

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