Comparison of hollow core reinforced concrete slabs types

A hollow core slab is a concrete member with continuous voids provided to reduce the weight and cost of the building. Because of the less concrete used in constructing these slabs, hollow core slab systems are lighter than solid concrete slabs while maintaining the ability to have large spans. This thesis deals with the nonlinear numerical design of two types of reinforced concrete hollow core slabs (voided and waffle slabs). Firstly, 30 slab models are designed via SAFE software. Next, these 30 samples are divided into the waffle and voided slabs with five different lengths (L) of the span and three different widths of the beam (wb) for each span. After the design stage, the models are subjected to a uniform distributed load (live and dead), then the slabs are analyzed by the nonlinear FEM via the same software. The numerical results showed that the long-term deflection, reinforced steel area, and concrete consumption for voided slab waffle slabs are affected by the slab span, thickness, and width of the beam. Furthermore, the results showed that the required amount of concrete in the hollow slabs is reduced by 30 % (or more) than the traditional slab.