Advantages -

 Waffle slabs are used for larger span slabs or floors and used when there is limited
requirement for number of columns.
 The load carrying capacity of waffle slab is greater than the other types of slabs.
 They provide good structural stability along with aesthetic appearance. Hence, it is
constructed for airports, hospitals, temples, churches etc.
 The waffle slab can be made of concrete or wood or steel among those concrete waffle
slab is preferred for commercial buildings and other two are preferred for garages,
decorative halls etc.
 It has good vibration control capacity because of two directional reinforcement. So, it is
useful for public buildings to control vibrations created by movements of crowd.
 Waffle slabs are lightweight and requires less amount of concrete, hence it is
economical.
 Construction of waffle slab is easy and quick with good supervision.
 Concrete and steel volume required is small, hence, light framework is enough for waffle
slab.
 Several services like lighting, plumbing pipes, electrical wiring, air conditioning, insulation
materials etc. can be provided within the depth of waffle slab by providing holes in the
waffle bottom surface. This system is called as Holedeck.
Drawbacks -
 Formwork tools required are very costly because of large quantity requirement of pods
and some special tools.
 The floor height should be more hence number of floors are reduced.
 The services provided in the waffle arrangement without proper maintenance may
causes damages to the slab.
 Skilled workers are required during its construction.
 They are not suitable for sloped areas. If there is slope area, the area must be levelled
with filling or by excavating. For soil filling, good soil should be used.
 They are not suitable against high winds or cyclonic areas because of their light weight.

Slab Failures -

 The failure locations of the ribbed samples were observed to occur near the midspan of
the slabs as these are where the highest bending moment could occur.
 All the cracks initiated from the bottom part of the ribs and continued to propagate
towards the topping as the load increased. The slab topping which is in the compression
zone, was able to withstand the loads as no cracks were observed at the early stage. It
was also observed that all the cracks started at the external ribs and later propagated
into the middle rib.
 Different cross sections were involved between these ribs as the middle rib is a T-section
while the external ribs are of L-shapes.
 The geometry of the middle ribs for all slabs provide advantage in terms of its rigidity and
stiffness, thus giving a better resistance on deflection.
 From the observation, the steel fibres were holding the cracks and assisted increase the
ability of the slab to resist more loads.
 This demonstrated that the incorporation of steel fibres in concrete has the ability to
increase the energy absorption capacity of the structure, thus, improves the cracking
behaviour and load bearing capacity.
 Topping thickness of 75 mm (SF125) gives similar ultimate load with the 100mm (SF100)
topping as compared to the slab having topping of 50 mm (SF150).
 In terms of failure patterns, all slabs tend to fail first at the topping rather than the bottom
of rib sections.
 Cracks begun from the external rib and propagated towards the internal rib, showing
overall thickness of ribs are not influential. Different cross section between those ribs shows
that geometry provides advantage in terms of rigidity and stiffness, thus giving better
resistance on deflection.
 Incorporation of steel fibres in the concrete matrix helped to improve ductility showing a
longer deflection without sudden brittle failures especially for thicker toppings. It proves
its ability to increase energy absorption capacity, thus improving cracking behaviour.
 Meanwhile, loading using displacement control was found to be a good method in
capturing the post-peak crack of the SFRC ribbed slabs under flexural loadings.