Abstract
The use of spherically voided biaxial concrete slab (SVBS) system, which uses hollow plastic balls as infill material, has increased widely because of its reduced weight-to-strength and weight-to-stiffness ratios when compared to solid concrete slabs. However, SVBS is a heterogeneous composite structure in which building a representative continuum model poses a significant challenge. To mitigate this challenge, the feasibility of determining the macromechanical structural behavior of spherically voided biaxial concrete slabs is studied using plate theories, aided by mechanical properties that were determined from a homogenization process of the representative volume element (RVE). This paper presents numerical analysis results of SVBS using both Mindlin-Reissner (thick) and Kirchhoff-Love (thin) plate theories. The results from both theories predicted the slab behavior reasonably well and they were within 10% of each other with the exception of the prediction of the twisting moment. Possible explanation of this deviation is provided in the paper.
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