Study on Stress Field of a Plain and RC Slab with a Slot by Finite Element Approach

In engineering practice, slots of different shapes and orientations are made with a view to satisfy the functional requirements. The presence of slots increases the complexity of the analysis (by stress concentration) of structural members/elements. Studies have been commonly done on plain concrete slab with rectangular and circular opening, while only few studies have been done on slots of large width/depth ratio. In this paper, rectangular slot on a finite slab subjected to axial compression is considered to study the effects of slot size and shape on the stress distribution. The studies were further carried out considering the effects of different percentage of reinforcement. A slab with a circular hole is modelled and analysed using ABAQUS and the results are compared with the available analytical results. Further, parametric studies were carried out on plain and reinforced concrete slab with different percentage of reinforcements with slot. Comparison of the results obtained from the parametric studies on the stress field is studied for both plain and reinforced concrete slabs. Keywords— Finite Element Method, Reinforced Concrete Slab, Rectangular Slot, Stress Field, Uniaxial Compression.