VOIDED SLABS

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INDEX
SR. NO. CONTENT PAGE NO.
1 INTRODUCTION 2
2 MATERIALS 3
3 CONSTRUCTION 4
4 WORKING 5 to 7
5 CASE STUDY 8 to 10
6 CONCLUSION 11
7 REFERENCES 121

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INTRODUCTION

 The voided slabs are reinforced concrete slabs in which voids allow reducing the amount
(volume) of concrete. The invention of the hollow slab was in 1950s. But it was used only in one
way spanning construction, and must be supported by beams and / or fixed walls. The idea was
to create a hollow biaxial slab with the same capabilities as a solid slab, but with considerably
less weight due to the elimination of excess concrete. In building constructions, the slab is a very
important structural member to make a space. And the slab is one of the largest member
consuming concrete. The main obstacle with concrete constructions, in case of horizontal slabs,
is the high weight, which limits the span. For this reason major developments of reinforced
concrete have focused on enhancing the span reducing the weight or overcoming concrete's
natural weakness in tension. In a general way, the slab was designed only to resist vertical load.
However, as people are getting more interest of residential environment recently, noise and
vibration of slab are getting more important, as the span is increased; the deflection of the slab is
also increased. Therefore, the slab thickness should be increase. Increasing the slab thickness
makes the slabs heavier, and will increased column and foundations size. Thus, it makes
buildings consuming more materials such as concrete and steel reinforcement. To avoid these
disadvantages which were caused by increasing of self-weight of slabs, the voided slab system,
was suggested.

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PRINCIPLE
Voided slab construction removes concrete in locations of the slab that are less critical to resist
the applied loads. Removing concrete from the slab interior while maintaining overall depth of
the section allows for comparable utility in most applications as the section modulus and
stiffness are roughly equivalent to a solid slab, but the self-weight of the section is greatly
reduced. This reduction has many benefits.

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MATERIALS
 Bubble deck slab is composed of three main materials; they are steel, plastic spheres and
concrete.

1. Concrete: The concrete is made of standard Portland cement with wax aggregate
size of 20 mm. No plasticizers are necessary for concrete mixture.
2. Steel: The steel reinforcement is of grade Fy60 strength or higher. The steel is
fabricated in two forms –meshed layers for lateral support and diagonal girders
for vertical support of the bubbles.
3. Plastic spheres: The hollow spheres are made from recycled high density
polyethylene or HDPE.

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EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

 Shear Strength

The results of a number of practical tests confirm that the Shear strength depends on the effective
mass of concrete. The Shear capacity is measured to be in the range of 72-91% of the Shear
capacity of a solid deck. In calculations, factor of 0.6 is used on the shear capacity for a solid
deck of identical height. This guarantees a large safety margins. Areas with high shear loads
need therefore a special attention, e.g. around columns. That is solved by omitting a few balls in
the critical area around the columns, therefore, giving full shear capacity. Near the columns,
bubbles are left out so in these zones a Bubble deck slab is designed exactly the same way as the
solid slab.
 Bending strength
Bubble Deck when compared to a solid deck, both practically and theoretically. The results in
the table below show that for the same deck thickness, the bending strength is same for Bubble
Deck and for a solid deck and that the stiffness of the Bubble Deck is slightly lower. Bending
stresses in the Bubble Deck slab are found to be 6.43% lesser than that of solid slab. The ultimate
load value obtaining bending tests were up to 90% greater than the ultimate load value. The
bottom reinforcement steel and the top compressive portion of stress block contributes to flexural
stiffness in the bending.
 Deflection
The deflection of the test specimens was measured at their mid-span beneath the lower face of
the tested slabs. Deflection of Bubble Deck is 5.88% more than solid slab as the stiffness is
reduced due to the hollow portion. Strengthened Bubble Deck has low deflection compare to un
strengthened Bubble Deck slab. Conventional slab carried the stress of about 30.98 MPa by
applying the udl load of about 340 kN and causes deflection of 12.822 mm. The Bubble Deck
slab carried the stress of about 30.8 MPa by applying the udl load of about 320 kN and causes
deflection of 14.303mm.

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CASE STUDY

YORK UNIVERSITY LIFE SCIENCE BUILDING

Bubble deck is used for the Life Science Building. The total time for design inception to
completion of structure was less than 12 months. This is a 160000 square-foot, 4-storey, LEED
silver certified building.

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MIAMI ART MUSEUM

In November 2010, construction began on new MAM building and completed in 2013. The
building is designed by Swiss architects Herzog and Deuron. This three story building has
200000 square feet of space-120000 square feet inside and 80000 square feet outside. In this
building Cobiax system is used.

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CONCLUSION
 Voided slabs eliminate concrete where it is not needed and the subsequent weight
reduction makes longer span possible.
 It saves money and reduces the total building weight, allowing lighter foundations.
 This intellectual slab design may become the future of slab construction which gives the
tremendous contribution in sustainable development.

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REFERENCES

 Analysis of voided deck slab & cellular deck slab using Midias
Civil by B Vaignam, Dr.B.S.R.K Prasad.
 Voided Slab Design: Review Paper, Ashish Kumar Dwivedi1, Prof. H. J Joshi, Rohit Raj,
Prem Prakash Mishra, Mamta Kadhane, Bharati Mohabey Civil Engineering, Rajarshi
Shahu College of Engineering, Pune, Maharashtra, India

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