FALL 2013

Retrofit of RC Slab for Impact Load

by

Md. Azizullah, Kajal Kumar Adhikary & Raisul Alam

The impact resistance of concrete is generally quite poor due to its relatively low tensile strength and energy dissipating characteristics. Therefore the overall objective of the study is to investigate the dynamic behavior of lightly reinforced concrete plates under impact loading with respect to displacement, velocity and time. Moment-curvature and displacement-time relationship for all the specimens are studied. The study also presents an experimental program designed to investigate the behavior of specimens, which includes drop weight tests performed on twelve RC slab specimens (size 8ft ´ 1ft  ´ 2 in). To test the slabs under simply supported condition, different types of loading conditions (i.e., different weights and heights of impactor) are considered in field tests.

Another object of this research is finding the way of impact reduction by energy absorber, for which the slabs are retrofitted by 1 mm thick plates attached by epoxy. Foams of different thickness are also tried as shock absorber.

Experiments indicate the usefulness of epoxy and the steel plates, while results with foams are quite encouraging, supported by numerical results from a program written in FORTRAN.