Nowadays, waffle slabs are a demand for structural designers, as a consequence of architectural design evolution and new building management concepts, in spite of its laborious numerical modeling. Therefore, it becomes necessary to know more about the structural behavior and improve the theoretical models used for simulating these slabs. The objective of this work was to analyze the adequacy of a design method widely used in the modeling of waffle slabs, verifying if it represents the slab behavior satisfactorily. A real scale waffle slab submitted to a load in a localized área was instrumented with strain gages and deflection gages for measuring specific strain and deflection in different points. The numerical analysis was made using a grid model developed by a local software company specialized in structural analysis. Tests showed a linear behavior, even though residual results could indicate cracking in some isolated sections. Numerically computed deflections presented a good estimate to test results and the experimental strains defined the presence of bending moments coincident with the forecasts of the theoretical model.
waffle slab; reinforced concrete; grid analysis; instrumentation