Punching shear strength of waffle flat slabs

Abstract This research aimed to compare the ultimate load of 10 waffle flat slabs with different sizes of solid area and spacing between ribs. For this, a non-linear computational simulation of the slabs was carried out until their failure using the engineering software ANSYS. The failure modes and loads were analyzed, and the results showed that the models with less solid area presented less bearing capacity in comparison to the models with greater solid area when the failure mode was shearing of the ribs. The slabs with the largest solid regions experienced punching shear and behaved in a similar way as solid flat slabs, indicating compliance with the codes in relation to their punching shear strength provisions, especially with the NBR 6118. The results show that a square solid area whose length is 15% of the span is reasonable and that the ACI, Eurocode 2 and NBR 6118 provisions underestimate the shear strength of the ribs.