Punching shear resistance of reinforced concrete footings: evaluation of design codes

Punching is a possible failure mode for slender footings and it may lead a structure to ruin through progressive collapse. Although footing present different geometric characteristics, their punching shear design is based on the empirical methods used for flat slabs. This paper uses experimental results from 216 tests to evaluate the performance of design code recommendations presented by ACI 318 (2014), ABNT NBR 6118 (2014) and Eurocode 2 (2010) to estimate the punching shear resistance of reinforced concrete footings. Great dispersion between theoretical and experimental results was observed, being evident that the test system affects the punching shear capacity of footings. The more complex method proposed by Eurocode 2 resulted in a better correlation with experimental results.