Study on strength of thick reinforced concrete slab with opening Original Research Article

This study focused on the support structure of the reactor in a demonstration plant of an advanced thermal reactor (ATR). To verify the structural soundness of the thick reinforced concrete slab under out-of-plane force, two types of reduced scale model were employed. The experiments in which the vertical load was gradually increased and a non-linear finite element analysis (FEA) were carried out. As a result, it was possible to evaluate the strength of the support slab of the reactor, to determine that the slab was of the flexural failure type and that the slab had adequate strength. Furthermore, it was found that the ultimate bending strength of the support slab could be conservatively pressumed based on the sum of the strength of its short-span cantilever beams. In addition, using non-linear FEA on layered shell elements, the failure process was confirmed and the suitability for practical application was ascertained.