Compressive membrane action in circular reinforced slabs

When a concrete slab with low steel proportion is laterally restrained, the load carrying capacity is enhanced due to the phenomenon of compressive membrane action. Despite the known advantages, the absence of a formula, that could explicitly calculate the enhanced capacity, poses a drawback in design and assessment of laterally restrained structures. It encourages engineers to regard the additional capacity as an added factor of safety. This paper attempts to overcome this shortcoming for slabs of circular geometry. astic–plastic Deformation Theory solution for circular concrete slabs has been worked out. The resulting graph never touches the curve for rigid-plastic strain-rate solution as it does in the strip case, Eyre (Journal of Structuring Engineering 1990;116(12):3251; 1997;123(10):1331). However, the maximum membrane force at the centre may still be used to derive an explicit load capacity as a function of material properties and restraint stiffness only.