Trade Journals for the Concrete Industry

In this work, the influence exerted by large openings on the structural behaviour of hollow core floors is analysed through a nonlinear FE procedure. In the first part of the paper the main features of the proposed numerical approach have been illustrated and its effectiveness has been proved through proper comparisons with experimental results on a full-scale specimen. In this second part of the work, the model is extended to more general cases, by performing a parametric numerical study, able to take into account the influence of the most important variables (such as opening position and dimensions, floor slenderness ratio, presence of a structural topping, etc.) on the structural response. The aim of this research is the development of “design charts”, which summarize in a limited number of graphs the so obtained results, providing the reduction in floor bearing capacity determined by the presence of large openings with respect to the entire floor.