Slabs and plate-shaped concrete structures are extensively used for the construction of floors and bridges. Nowadays, engineers make use of plenty of methods and techniques for assessing the capacity of slabs, but many such methods are either over-conservative, inadequate for daily uses or non-automated. A new pseudo-lower bound method for the assessment of concrete slabs, in which such shortcomings are addressed, is proposed in this paper. The technique is based on a linear-elastic finite-element method considering moment redistributions due to yielding. The solution is achieved through an automated local optimisation procedure with a monotonically increasing load. As outputs, the method provides a lower bounded estimate of the intensity of load causing global failure and a configuration of yielded elements in the slab. Different examples are reviewed and the results were found to estimate load-bearing capacities well.

中文翻译：

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用于评估混凝土板的伪下限方法

楼板和板状混凝土结构广泛用于楼板和桥梁的建造。如今，工程师们使用了大量的方法和技术来评估板坯的容量，但许多这样的方法要么过于保守，不适合日常使用，要么非自动化。本文提出了一种新的用于评估混凝土板的伪下界方法，解决了这些缺点。该技术基于线弹性有限元方法，考虑到由于屈服引起的力矩重新分布。该解决方案是通过具有单调增加负载的自动局部优化程序实现的。作为输出，该方法提供引起全局失效的载荷强度的下限估计以及板中屈服单元的配置。