Structural reliability of concrete slabs considering tensile membrane action

When a continuous concrete slab is excessively loaded or a certain support is lost due to an accidental event, membrane action can be activated in order to generate an alternative load transfer to the remaining supports, which can considerably enhance the load-carrying capacity. This can delay or even prevent a progressive collapse, increase the structural reliability of components and consequently increase the robustness of concrete structures. Currently, only limited research has been focusing on tensile membrane action, and therefore a novel real-scale test set-up has been developed in order to assess these actions in real-scale concrete plates. In parallel, a numerical FE model has been established in order to model the structural behaviour (i.e. tensile membrane action) as per the investigated test program. The details of this test set-up are briefly explained and some relevant experimental test results are provided. Considering the experimental findings and validated numerical modelling, the influence of tensile membrane action on the structural reliability of concrete slabs is quantified. Probabilistic models for the most important basic variables are gathered and the structural reliability is assessed using Latin Hypercube sampling. The framework and first results as proposed in this contribution can consequently be used as input for quantifying the robustness of structural systems through robustness indicators