Concrete Slab-on-Grade Reinforced by Geogrids: Fid-Bau Portal

Concrete Slab-on-Grade Reinforced by Geogrids

Tang, Xiaochao / Jlilati, Mohamad N. / Higgins, Isaac

Slab-on-grade is one type of shallow foundation with unreinforced plain concrete directly poured onto compacted subgrade. Slab-on-grade foundations are commonly used as industrial floor slabs for warehouse facilities such as storage, retail, and distribution centers. As one type of geosynthetics, geogrids have been used in earthen structures such as earth retaining walls, slopes, pavements, and embankments primarily to provide reinforcement to the unbound geomaterials of the structures. This study is aimed to investigate the potential benefits of embedding geogrids in concrete slabs-on-grade. In addition to four-point bending tests on unreinforced and reinforced concrete beams, large slabs-on-grade were built on top of local soils and aggregate inside a testing box and tested under monotonic static loads. Results of the four-point bending tests show that the geogrids carried additional load after the crack initiated and delayed the collapse failure of the concrete beams. Results from tests on fully-supported slab-on-grade show that the inclusion of geogrids allows for developing secondary crack after the first crack and results in a greater collapse load of the slab.