Publications related to Concrete slab

Reuse of cut concrete slabs in new buildings for circular ultra-low-carbon floor designs

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Numa Joy Bertola, Célia Marine Küpfer

The study explores an original idea that responds to the urgent need to reduce the detrimental environmental impacts of load-bearing floor construction in new buildings by reusing saw-cut reinforced concrete (RC) pieces salvaged from soon-to-be demolished ...

2024

Mesh-based topology, shape and sizing optimization of ribbed plates

In this paper, we present a new parameterization and optimization procedure for minimizing the weight of ribbed plates. The primary goal is to reduce embodied CO2 in concrete floors as part of the effort to diminish the carbon footprint of the construction ...

Springer2024

Shear and steel-fibre reinforcement for the punching resistance of flat slabs at internal and edge columns

Diego Hernández Fraile

Reinforced concrete flat slabs consist of a continuous, thin concrete plate that rests on a grid of columns. The supporting surface of the columns is very small compared to the floor plan dimensions, leading to concentrations of shear forces near the colum ...

EPFL2024

Reusability assessment of reinforced concrete components prior to deconstruction from obsolete buildings

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Maléna Bastien Masse, Julie Rachel Devènes

A large part of building demolitions is motivated by purely socio-economic reasons. Hence, about-to-be-demolished structures, commonly made of reinforced concrete, very often present no or little degradation. When adaptive reuse of the entire building is n ...

2024

A concrete answer for circular construction: three prototypes reusing saw-cut elements

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Maléna Bastien Masse, Célia Marine Küpfer

Existing concrete buildings should be retained for as long as possible to reduce the environmental burden of demolition and new construction. However, when urban pressure makes demolition unavoidable, salvaging and reusing concrete elements elsewhere in ne ...

2024

Model uncertainties in action effects and load bearing capacity calculation in statically indeterminate reinforced concrete structures

Aurelio Muttoni, Alain Nussbaumer, Xhemsi Malja

For the dimensioning and assessment of structures, it is common practice to compare action effects with sectional resistances. Extensive studies have been performed to quantify the model uncertainty on the resistance side. However, for statically indetermi ...

Ernst & Sohn2024

Contributions to rebar-to-concrete interaction and its structural implications for design and monitoring applications

Enrique Corres Sojo

Bond between reinforcing bars and concrete has been the focus of extensive research over the last century. This is well-justified as the functioning of reinforced concrete intimately depends on the interaction between rebar and concrete, as for example cra ...

EPFL2024

Structural component reuse of precast and cast-in-place reinforced concrete in architecture since the late 1960s in Europe

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Célia Marine Küpfer

The reuse of concrete pieces salvaged from structures undergoing transformation or demolition into new architectural projects has gained a sudden and visible interest over the past five years. However, the practice of reusing concrete pieces in new structu ...

vdf Hochschulverlag AG2024

Influence of model uncertainty and long term deformations in action effects calculation in reinforced concrete structures

Xhemsi Malja

Most codes of practice adopt a semi probabilistic design approach for the dimensioning and assessment of structures. Accordingly, structural safety is ensured by performing limit state verifications using design values determined with adequately calibrated ...

EPFL2024

Lessons learned from a prediction and postdiction of a shake table test on an unreinforced masonry aggregate

Katrin Beyer, Igor Tomic

Historical centers of Europe and Croatia are often formed by unreinforced masonry building aggregates that developed as the layout of the city or village was densified. In these aggregates, adjacent buildings can share structural walls with an older and a ...

2023

Environmental and Life-Cycle Cost Evaluation of a Composite Timber-UHPFRC Bridge

Eugen Brühwiler, Numa Joy Bertola

Ultra-High-Performance Fibre Reinforced Cementitious Composite (UHPFRC) has recently been used to design lightweight structures and strengthen existing ones, with more than 300 applications in Switzerland. Several composite timber-UHPFRC bridges have been ...

2023

Design of New Low-Carbon Floor Systems by Reusing Cut Cast-in-Place Concrete Pieces

Corentin Jean Dominique Fivet, Numa Joy Bertola, Célia Marine Küpfer

As floors typically account for the largest share of a building embodied carbon footprint, new strategies to build low-carbon floors must be developed and implemented. Among these strategies, the reuse of existing components is a promising circular approac ...

Novus Press2023

Hysteretic behaviour of welded connections with highly inelastic panel zones

Dimitrios Lignos, Andronikos Skiadopoulos

The current practice in capacity-designed steel moment resisting frames (MRFs) worldwide allows for limitedshear yielding in the column web panel zone. As such, inelastic deformations concentrate near the beam ends, thereby leading to flexural stre ...

Ernst & Sohn2023

Experimental testing and structural analysis of composite tile – reinforced concrete domes

Savvas Saloustros

Conventional formworks for concrete curved shells either are expensive, complex and wasteful or have formal restrictions. Using tile vaults (also known as timbrel, Guastavino, thin-tile or Catalan vaults) as stay-in-place formwork for concrete shells could ...

2023

Correlation between sonic pulse velocity and flat-jack tests for the estimation of the elastic properties of unreinforced brick masonry: Case studies from Croatia

Savvas Saloustros

Historic urban cores in southern Europe are characterized by a significant number of existing unreinforced masonry structures that are known for their seismic vulnerability. The first step in the preservation of such damaged buildings is condition assessme ...

2023

Towards instability-free welded moment connections

Dimitrios Lignos, Andronikos Skiadopoulos

In capacity-designed steel moment resisting frames (MRFs), inelastic deformations are mostly concentrated in the steel beams and the column fixed ends of the first story, while the participation of the panel zones in energy dissipation is limited. In such ...

2023

Punching of edge columns with and without shear reinforcement: an experimental investigation

Aurelio Muttoni, Diego Hernández Fraile, Andri Setiawan, Júlia Borges Dos Santos

Most research efforts in the past related to the punching resistance of reinforced concrete slabs have concentrated on the response of internal slab-column connections, where significant advances in the state-of-the-art have been performed. Other than inte ...

Fédération Internationale du Béton (fib)2022

Deformation capacity evaluation for flat slab seismic design

Aurelio Muttoni, Lorenzo Martinelli, António Manuel Pinho Ramos, Andri Setiawan

In flat-slab frames, which are typically designed as secondary seismic structures, the shear failure of the slab around the column (punching failure) is typically the governing failure mode which limits the deformation capacity and can potentially lead to ...

SPRINGER2022

A new perspective on the punching resistance of edge columns with and without shear reinforcement applying refined measurement techniques

Aurelio Muttoni, Diego Hernández Fraile

Despite edge columns being instrumental components of flat slabs, most punching research has focused on internal connections. Several particularities of edge columns, such as load eccentricity and moment transfer, require additional experimental investigat ...

Fédération Internationale du Béton (fib)2022

Les Cahiers de l'Ibois 3 / Ibois Notebook 3

Petras Vestartas, Sandra Vuilleumier

Before the twentieth century and concrete modernity, it was stone that embodied the “well built”. Could sustainable wood one day replace concrete as the archetypal material? Will it find a place on the scale of values that gives archi- tecture its referenc ...

EPFL PRESS2022