Strengthening of flat slabs against punching shear using post-installed shear reinforcement

A significant number of existing flat slabs currently require strengthening against punching shear for safety reasons (the increase of applied loads and deficiencies during design or construction) or to comply with more stringent code requirements. Available strengthening methods are, however, not completely satisfactory, or they cannot be applied in many cases (depending on the possibilities to enlarge column sizes or to intervene on the upper face of slabs). In this paper, an innovative system overcoming most of the previous difficulties is presented. It consists of inclined shear reinforcement installed within existing slabs by drilling holes only from the soffit of the slab and by bonding it with high-performance epoxy adhesive. The results of a test program on 12 full-size slabs 3.0 x 3.0 x 0.25 m (118 x 118 x 9.8 in.) show that such reinforcement is an efficient way to increase both the strength and deformation capacity of flat slabs. Finally, the design of the reinforcement based on the critical shear-crack theory (CSCT) is presented.