Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1999

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Civil Engineering

An experimental investigation was conducted to examine the behavior of heavily reinforced ferrocement circular plates simply supported along its circumference subjected to a punching shear load. Eighteen ferrocement circular slabs with a diameter of 900 mm were tested with the diameters of skeletal steel, number of wiremesh layers and thickness as the varying parameters while the mortar strength and the dimensions of the loading plate were kept constant. Test results on the punching shear strength were also compared with the empirical equations proposed by various researchers and codes of practice. The test results showed that increasing the diameters of skeletal steel while keeping the layers of wiremesh constant greatly increased the cracking and ultimate shear capacity of slabs. Similarly, increasing the layers of wiremesh while keeping the diameters of skeletal steel constant increased the ferrocement's cracking and ultimate loads. Furthermore, the modulus of resilience increased as the layers ofwiremesh and diameters of skeletal steel were increased. The toughness index did not show significant increase when the layers of wiremesh and . diameters of skeletal steel were increased. The loaddeflection curves for ferrocement slabs under punching shear exhibited ductile behavior and that when the ultimate load was attained, total collapse did not occur Paramasivam's empirical equation and two other equations provided by the British and CEB-FIP model codes used for the computation of the slabs punching shear capacity yield agreeable results when compared to the test results.