The increase of the use of hollow core slabs within the Brazilian construction market has caused a significant boost of production, demanding the assessment of the actual shear and flexural capacity of these slabs. This paper presents the performance evaluation of typical hollow core slabs 200 mm deep that are produced by extrusion machinery in a factory in Brazil, subjected to bending and shear tests according to FIB recommendations. The experimental results were confronted against calculation requirements according to the European code for hollow core slabs, EN-1168:2005, as well as to the Brazilian code of practice for structural concrete, NBR-6118:2003. The analysis of the results showed that the calculations according to NBR-6118:2003 were not appropriate to predict the actual flexural shear capacity for hollow core slabs with filled cores. On the other hand, the calculations according to EN-1168:2005 provided a good prediction for the actual flexural shear capacity for slabs with 2 filled cores, but also it failed to provide a conservative prediction for slabs with 4 filled cores. Additionally, bending tests of hollow core slabs were carried out for spans of 3 m and 6 m, with topping and without topping, and with and without filled cores. The experimental results from the slabs without topping for span of 3 m showed a significant interaction between shear and bending mechanisms. This interaction was not observed for bending tests with same span of 3 m for the other slabs with toppings and with filled cores, wherein the shear capacity was increased by the presence of the toppings and filled cores. Finally, further bending tests with 6 m span were carried out for slabs with and without toppings showing any behaviour of shear-bending interaction. Therefore, this study indicates that the 6 m span is mostly recommended to be used in bending tests of typical hollow core slabs 200 mm deep.
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