Construction disasters caused by punching in the support zone of reinforced concrete slab-and-column ceilings as well as means of their repair and reinforcement

Slab-and-column ceilings are widely used because of the considerable savings that they allow to obtain in the total construction cost. However, this structural system has a weak feature that consists of vulnerability to punching in a ceiling slab around its connection to a column. This paper describes several examples of disasters caused by slab punching and gives conclusions resulting therefrom. In order to eliminate the problem of punching, in the world there are used various types of shear reinforcement in a slab around a column, which are characterized by malleability and puncture resistance, thereby preventing a disaster. Examples of such reinforcement of ceiling slabs around columns are also shown in the work.