Impact resistance of prestressed and reinforced concrete slabs under falling weight indenter

Impact resistance behavior of prestressed and reinforced concrete slabs has been investigated under a freely falling steel impactor. The target concrete slabs having equivalent span of 800 mm × 800 mm and thickness 100 mm. The prestressed and reinforced concrete slabs were having same design compressive strength, 72 N/mm2. All the four edges of the slabs were clamped in the drop impact setup. The slabs were impacted at the center of span by dropping a steel mass of 243 kg from a fixed height of 500 and 1000 mm. The impact force, reaction, acceleration and deflection response for both prestressed and reinforced concrete slabs were studied. The experimental results showed that prestressed concrete slab has better performance compared with identical reinforced concrete slab. The load carrying capacity of slab has increased by 4.5% and deflection has reduced by 28% due to the employed prestress in the concrete.