Abstract
Mechanical response of textile-reinforced aerated concrete sandwich panels was investigated using instrumented three-point bending tests under quasi-static and low-velocity impact loads. Two types of core material were compared in the sandwich composite consisting of plain autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) and fiber-reinforced aerated concrete (FRAC), and the stress skins were alkali-resistant glass (ARG) and textile reinforced concrete (TRC). The textile-reinforced layer promoted distributed cracking mechanisms and resulted in significant improvement in the flexural strength and ductility. Digital Image Correlation (DIC) was used to study the distributed cracking mechanism and obtain impact force-crack width response at different drop heights. A constitutive material model was also developed based on a multi-linear tension/compression strain hardening model for the stress-skin and an elastic, perfectly plastic compression model for the core. A detailed parametric study was used to address the effect of model parameters on the flexural response. The model was further applied to simulate the experimental flexural data from the static and impact tests on the plain aerated concrete and sandwich composite beams.
Highlights
Precast concrete sandwich panels have been used in the construction industry in North America for more than 60 years, since their thermal characteristics reduce the energy consumption of buildings due to heating and cooling [1]
The addition of textile reinforced concrete (TRC) layers to the core significantly increased the toughness by a factor of 22 and 18 in TRC-Autoclaved Concrete (AAC) 50 × 50 and TRC-AAC 50 × 100, respectively
These measurements were compared to the plain AAC cores at deflection limit of 5 mm
Summary
Precast concrete sandwich panels have been used in the construction industry in North America for more than 60 years, since their thermal characteristics reduce the energy consumption of buildings due to heating and cooling [1]. A comparative evaluation of the embodied energy data of lightweight concrete with normal weight concrete, wood, or brick construction could result in 40–70% energy reduction during the entire life cycle [2]. A mix design methodology to optimize thermal and mechanical properties by Yu et al [9] showed that the structural efficiency defined as the ratio of compressive strength and density is not sufficient to compare different AC mixtures. This means that individual compressive strength or density are unable to indicate the thermal conductivity and efficiency. The hardened structure has a general ratio of 2.5:1.0 air-pores to micro-pores [11], which results in an 80% porosity discontinuous pore system
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