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.