To reduce wall damages of buildings and structures in alpine canyons due to rockfall impact, a protective layer scheme with combination of S-shaped steel and EPS foam sandwich slab was proposed. S-shape cold-formed thin-walled steel was designed and self-made. The proposed protective layer scheme was used on a RC slab supported at four corners, then a series of rockfall impact tests were conducted on this RC slab. The cushioning performance of the protective layer was studied mainly through observing the variation of rockfall impact force and support reaction forces at four corners of the RC slab with time. The results were compared with those without the protective layer. It was shown that the new protective layer makes the time duration of rockfall impacting the RC slab be lengthened 5 ~ 6 times, the biggest impact force decreases 50%, the average impact force decreases from the initial value to its 1/7 ~ 1/6, the maximum strain rate in the RC slab drops from105s -1 to 103 ~ 10-2s-1, the damage level of the RC slab due to rockfall impact is greatly reduced, so the proposed protective layer has a good cushion performance.