Influence of transversal reinforcement on the crackin behaviour of reinforced concrete slabs under service load
In the framework of a research project at the Universität der Bundeswehr München, experimental and theoretical studies were conducted to observe the influence of reinforcement on the crack and deformation behaviour of reinforced slabs in the serviceability limit state. Besides experimental investigations on the influence of reinforcement bars, arranged perpendicular to the direction of tensile stress, on cracking in reinforced concrete strips, tests on concrete slabs with inclined reinforcement mesh subjected to uniaxial and biaxial bending load were also conducted. Overall, the evaluation of the test results showed a significant influence of the perpendicular and skewed arranged reinforcement bars on cracking behaviour of reinforced concrete slabs under particular conditions. On the basis of preliminary mechanical considerations, test results and additional numerical parameter studies, an approach to calculate the crack spacing and the crack width in concrete slabs, based on the classical crack model and with taking the influence of arbitrary reinforcement direction into account, was developed.
The following article presents selected contents of the conducted investigations and summarizes the essential results of the research project. The focus is on experimental investigations on slabs under uniaxial bending load.