Structural reliability of hollow core slabs considering compressive membrane action

Compressive membrane action can considerably improve the load bearing capacity of concrete slabs and beams in case of excessive loaded due to an accidental event. Currently, only limited research has been focusing on compressive membrane action in prestressed concrete elements, or on concrete elements with large cavities, such as precast concrete hollow core slabs. Therefore, a novel real-scale test setup has been developed in order to assess this effect in precast hollow core slabs, and how it can enhance the load-carrying capacity in accidental events. In parallel with these tests, a numerical finite element model has been developed in order to perform a more detailed structural analysis of this phenomenon, and to study the influence of various input parameters. The details of this test setup are briefly explained, and some relevant experimental test results are provided. Considering the experimental findings and validated numerical model, this contribution aims to quantify the influence of compressive membrane action on the structural reliability of precast concrete hollow core slabs. To this end, probabilistic models for the most important material and geometric variables are gathered, and the structural reliability is assessed using Latin Hypercube sampling. Overall, the results indicate that considering the formation of compressive membrane action strongly influences the variability of the ultimate load-carrying capacity of precast concrete hollow core slabs.