Punching Shear Strength of Voided Slab: Literature Review and Evaluation of Design Codes

Despite of the economic advantages provided by the voided slabs, their design against punching shear failure, as suggested by the current building codes, are based on the equations derived from tests on flat slabs. Previous tests on voided slabs showed that the punching shear capacity of such slabs are different from that of flat slabs due to the differences in cross-sections. This paper reviews the previous works conducted to investigate the punching shear behavior of voided slabs. In addition, it evaluates the punching shear design provisions of the current building codes using the test results of voided slabs from literature. It was found that the punching shear design equations of the current building codes are inconsistent when they applied to estimate the punching shear capacities of voided slabs