Abstract:
Folded plates have been widely used in some structures, such as industrial buildings, hangar, storage, swimming pools etc., due to their natural stiffness and higher load bearing capacity as well as their economic advantage and aesthetic appearance. The thickness of the reinforced concrete (RC) folded plate is an important parameter in terms of its economic cost and load bearing capacity. The works performed on numerical solution of RC folded plates are enough in the literature although there is no any work related to its thickness effect on flexural behavior. In this work, the behavior of V-shaped RC folded plates having various thicknesses (60, 70 and 80 mm) produced from the self-compacting concrete (SCC) with/out steel fiber are experimentally investigated and developed the empirical formula. After 90-day curing period, full-scale V-shaped RC folded plates are subjected to four-point bending load. The load bearing capacity, load–displacement behavior, toughness and ductility values as well as cracking patterns of all V-shaped RC folded plate specimens are found. It is also seen from experimental results that the use of hybrid fiber reinforced SCC in production of V-shaped RC folded plates provides superior flexural behavior. It is addressed that the thickness of the V-shaped RC folded plates can be effectively reduced and its flexural performance is improved by using hybrid steel fibers. Also, a design method for the V-shaped RC folded plates with hybrid steel fibers is also proposed for estimating the nominal moment bearing capacity of V-shaped RC folded plates with some assumptions based on the ACI 544 procedure. © 2022 Institution of Structural Engineers