Analysis of the effect of shoring on the behaviour of reinforced concrete slabs

The results obtained confirmed that, for the particular case under study, delaying the shoring removal until concrete has reached its 28-day characteristic strength corresponds in fact to the best practice as it reduces the stresses and prevents cracking of the slab in the first 28 days. However, it was also seen that other more ambitious practices, leading to an early withdrawal of the shoring (before 28 days), are also perfectly acceptable in terms of stresses and deformations in the slab under study. Only in premature withdrawal schemes (before 7 days) the likelihood of early cracking is more significant, and so these situations can in fact demand a sophisticated study of stress history to adequately take into account the influence of the initial stresses on the service life behaviour of the slab.