Behavior of thin lightly reinforced flat slabs under concentric loading

•Four thin flat slab specimens are tested under concentric loading.•Punching shear failure was postponed by the installation of headed studs.•Critical Shear Crack Theory failure criteria are validated for thin slabs.•Explicit consideration of materials’ behavior led to improved predictions. The current research aims to study the behavior of thin reinforced concrete (RC) slabs under concentrated loads as well as to investigate the application of Critical Shear Crack Theory (CSCT) to such slabs. For this purpose, four square 100-mm-thick slabs were cast and subjected to concentrated punching monotonic loading. The experimental parameters were the flexural reinforcement ratio, 0.38% and 1.00%, and the presence or absence of shear headed stud reinforcement. It is shown that the failure criteria of CSCT describe reasonably well the observed failure modes and the ultimate loads of the specimens. However, attention is brought to some peculiarities in the analytical derivation of the load-rotation curve for thin lightly reinforced flat slabs, in which large deformations are experienced. Results showed that in such slabs, the behavior can be highly influenced by the post-yield stress-strain curve of the flexural steel reinforcement. As a result, the constitutive law of steel reinforcement should be explicitly taken into account in such cases. The versatility of CSCT to adapt to these conditions is demonstrated.