Flexural performance of steel fiber reinforced

concrete (SFRC) ribbed slab with various

topping thicknesses
Cite as: AIP Conference Proceedings 1903, 020013 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5011493
Published Online: 14 November 2017

Fadhillah Abdul Rahman, Afidah Abu Bakar, Mohd Hisbany Mohd Hashim, and Hazrina Ahmad

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AIP Conference Proceedings 1903, 020013 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5011493 1903, 020013

© 2017 Author(s).
 Flexural Performance of Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete
(SFRC) Ribbed Slab with Various Topping Thicknesses
Fadhillah Abdul Rahman 1, a), Afidah Abu Bakar2,, Mohd Hisbany Mohd Hashim3,
and Hazrina Ahmad4.
1
Master Science Student, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Shah Alam, Selangor,
Malaysia.
2
Associate Professor, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Shah Alam, Selangor,
Malaysia.
3
Associate Professor, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Shah Alam, Selangor,
Malaysia.
4
Lecturer, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.
a)
Corresponding author: fadhillah209@yahoo.com

Abstract. Ribbed slab provides lighter slab than an equivalent solid slab which helps in reducing the weight with its voids.
However, in order to overcome the drawbacks in the construction process, the application of steel fibre reinforcement
concrete (SFRC) is seen as an alternative material to be used in the slab. This study is performed to investigate the behaviour
of SFRC as the main material in ribbed slab, omitting the conventional reinforcements, under four-point bending test. Three
equivalent samples of ribbed slabs were prepared for this study with variations in the topping thickness of 100, 75 and 50
mm. The flexural strength of ribbed slab with 100 mm topping shows similar loading carrying capacity with the 75mm
topping while 50 mm gave the lowest ultimate loading. First cracks for all slabs occurred at the topping. The cracks began
from the external ribs and propagates toward the internal rib. Incorporation of steel fibres help in giving a longer deflection
softening than a sudden brittle failure, thus proves its ability to increase energy absorption capacity and improving cracking
behaviour.

INTRODUCTION
Slab plays an important part of a building system thus contributes significantly to the whole structural weight.
Practically, the choice of slab for a particular system will mostly depend upon economy, build ability, loading
additions and length. Traditional solid precast slab were used but as the industry began to involve in large scale
projects, it becomes more challenging due to its heavy design which leads to bigger slab sizes thus increasing their
self-weight. Rib profile was introduced which provide lighter and stiffer slab and helps in reduction of weight with its
voids.
Design requirement in [1] has states that the limitation on the rib spacing (s) to 1500 mm, rib thickness (D) not to
exceed four times its width (bw) and 0.13% of total reinforcement for mesh topping while the rib width is governed
by the cover, bar-spacing and fire resistance. It also states that ribbed slab and waffle slab do not need to be treated as
discrete elements for analysis purposes as the structural topping and transverse ribs can resist the torsion.
However, as structures tend to have less material, concern arise on its integrity to withstand heavy loading [2]. As
design becomes heavy, there will be more reinforcement detailing take place at site. This consume lots of construction
time and influences the project schedule. Consequently, introduction of fibres such as steel fibres (SF) seems to be a
right combination for the strength of reinforced concrete structure. It has good ductile behavior, energy absorption and
ability to control cracking that can benefit concrete which is brittle. Moreover, incorporations of SF in ribbed slab
may help in reducing reinforcement in the structures and improve the slab flexural strength. The structural performance

Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Construction and Building Engineering (ICONBUILD) 2017
AIP Conf. Proc. 1903, 020013-1–020013-6; https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5011493
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1591-1/$30.00

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of SFRC depends on factors such as fibre aspect ratio, fibre volume fraction, concrete strength, tensile strength and
orientation or distribution of fibre in concrete, where numerous studies have been conducted by researchers on the
mechanical strength properties of SF in concrete structures.
Summary of previous study as stated in the State of the Art Report on Fibre Reinforced Concrete [3] shows that
SFRC flexural strength is 50 to 70 percent more than unreinforced concrete matrix under three point bending test,
with higher volume fractions giving significant increases. Moreover, flexural strength of SFRC can be increased up
to 3 times compare to conventional concrete [4]. Although tremendous researches have been done on composite RC
structure, only few were reported on two-way ribbed slabs rather than one way ribbed slab. Most of the slab studies
were either on steel decking composite slab [5] or normal RC waffle slab [6]. As for SF application in slabs, mainly
reported were on standard solid slab and few on profiled ribbed slab alone. One journal were found on fully
replacement of reinforcement in the flat slab with SF [7].
This research intends to evaluate the performance of a SFRC ribbed slab under flexural loading. Moreover,
variations in rib size are taken into account as some studies show effects due the changes of rib sizes [8, 9, 10]. Here,
the addition of SF in reinforced concrete ribbed slab would be focused as rebar replacement, with respect to different
topping thicknesses. This could help in producing optimized rib design which can serve as a good basis for designers
and researchers in future applications.

SAMPLE PREPARATION
This study focused on the structural performance of steel fibred concrete in one way ribbed slab under experimental
testing. Firstly, mechanical strength properties are determined for the Steel Fibred Concrete (SFC) through preliminary
laboratory testing in order to confirm its strength.
The ribbed slab sizing was based on an industrialized actual precast slab dimensions. Slab samples were prepared
with similar dimensions of 2800 mm × 1200 mm with length of 2800 mm. Rib width and rib spacing were fixed to
200 mm and 300 mm, respectively. The different parameters were in terms of topping thickness and all samples were
fully on SF replacement. The design was checked to fulfill requirements stated in Clause 5.3.1 of the standard [1].
The type of steel fibres used was hooked end with tensile strength of 1100MPa; measuring 0.75 mm in diameter
and 60 mm in length. Fibres were included in the mix by volume fraction of 0.5% of total concrete volume, amounting
to a total of 40 kg/m³. Concrete strength was decided for Grade 30 (fcu = 30 N/mm2) so as to keep similar with industry
practice and concrete was supplied by a ready mixed supplier. Table 3.1 shows the design mix summary for SFRC.
The slabs are labelled as SF100, SF125 and SF150 for topping thicknesses of 100 mm, 75 mm and 50 mm, respectively
(OR rib thicknesses of 100 mm, 125 mm and 150 mm).
TABLE 1. Design mix of concrete grade 30
Material Value (kg/m3)
Ordinary Portland Cement 318
Water (w/c: 0.52) 165
Fine Aggregate 901
Coarse Aggregate 940
Stahlco Steel Fibre Concrete
40
Reinforcement HE 0.75/60

Subsequently, the sample preparations involved building formwork, casting and curing concrete slabs. All the
formworks were made using timber and plywood of 6mm thick and polystyrene panels were provided to shape out
the voids, thus ensuring control on the measurements. Steel fibres were added into the concrete mix on-site, with a
full speed for 5 minutes to ensure even mix of steel fibres in the concrete matrix.

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 FIGURE 1. Overall view slab formworks

EXPERIMENTAL TESTING
Testing preparations include painting of slabs and installation of strain gauges. Each slab sample was set up under
the Universal Testing Machine (UTM) of 250 kN capacity located at the Heavy Structures Laboratory, UiTM Shah
Alam. A total of 8 strain gauges were installed along the midspan of the central rib to measure the strains in the
compression and tension zones. The LVDTs, were also used to determine the deflection profiles. All the
instrumentations were then connected to a computerised data logger.
Load increments were applied under deflection control rate of 0.01 mm/s as per stated in RILEM (2003), until the
slab reached its ultimate failure. This slow rate was applied to ensure that the strain and displacement readings could
be captured effectively. Fig. 2 shows the four-point bending test set up as accordance to BS 12390:5.

(a) (b)
FIGURE 2. Details of experimental test setup; (a) LVDT positioning and (b) Side elevation view

FLEXURAL BEHAVIOUR OF SFC RIBBED SLAB

The effectiveness of the steel fibred concrete under flexure loading are evaluated based on the different topping
thicknesses.

Load-Deflection Relationship
The SFRC ribbed slab has the ability to withstand load up to 33.34 kN, 33.87 kN and 26.15 kN for SF100, SF125
and SF150, respectively. SF100 and SF125 gained similar maximum loading with similar load softening patterns but
SF100 exhibited longer deflection than other panels. Nevertheless, the resulting load bearing capacity between the
two samples did not differ much although the voided area is increased by 8.33% Meanwhile, SF150 only attained a

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maximum load of 22.79% lesser than all three slabs, with a corresponding of 1.99mm deflection. Since all samples
consisted the same volume fraction of steel fibres as the only reinforcement in the slab, it can be seen that the topping
thickness does affect the load bearing capacity of the ribbed slab. Fig. 3 shows the flexural behaviour of SF100, SF125
and SF150 ribbed slab without any reinforcement.

FIGURE 3. Flexural behaviour of ribbed slabs with different topping thickness

Deflection Profile
The deflections of the ribbed slab were measured at the midspan, across the rib direction through five numbers of
LVDTs. Fig. 4 shows that all ribbed slabs deflected more at the soffit of the topping. The profiles show the behaviour
of all slabs under the maximum flexural loads.

FIGURE 4. Deflection profiles across ribbed slab at ultimate loads

Crack Propagation
Visual observations were made to trace the significant crack line and its propagation when load was imposed on
each slab sample. Crack widths were then measured using a crack width gauge. Fig. 5 shows illustrations of crack
patterns for all the ribbed slabs.

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 (a) SF100 (b) SF125

(c) SF150
FIGURE 5. Illustration of crack patterns (soffit-bottom view)

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.

CONCLUSION
From the study, the following conclusions are made:
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.

REFERENCES
1. EN 1992-1-1, Eurocode 2: Design of Concrete Structures: Part 1-1 General Rules and Rules for Buildings,
(European Committee for Standardization (CEN), Brussel, 2004).
2. Mosley, B., Bungey, J., & Hulse, R. Reinforced Concrete Design to Eurocode 2 (7th ed.), (London: Palgrave
Macmillan. 2012).
3. ACI Committee 544, ACI Structural Journal, 96, (2002).

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4. Rana, A. International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering, 3 (1), 120–127 (2013),
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5. Abdul Wahab, H. M. S. and Khalil, M. H., Journal of Structural Engineering, 126, 219-227, (2000).
6. Michels, J., Waldmann, D., Maas, S and Zurbes, A., Steel fibre as only reinforcement for flat slab construction
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