Development of Design Methodology and Procedure for the Construction of a Reinforced Brick Concrete Slab

Abstract

Reinforced brick (RB slabs) are commonly used for residential and other buildings in the areas where bricks are available at a lower cost as compared to stone aggregates. The method of design for such slabs is not fully developed and usually it is based on approximate guidelines given in certain hand books or only on the experience on the builders. Various methods have been proposed for the design of RB slabs. First specimens are made and are tested in the laboratory for the flexural strength. Comparison is then made between the expected strength according to the proposed design methods and the experimental results. Conclusions are drawn and recommendations regarding the design are presented. The most important finding is that the steel required for the RB slabs maybe calculated by using the formulae for RCC slabs, provided that the bottom steel from the two slab panels at continuous edges is fully overlapped. The already present bottom steel acts as compression reinforcement, at the continuous edges, maybe designed using the doubly reinforced RCC formulae and the effective bottom concrete width after adding one tenth width occupied by bricks.