Experimental and theoretical investigations on flexural behavior of pre-cast sandwich composite panels

摘要

Concrete sandwich composite panels are commonly constructed of two wythes of concrete separated by a layer of thermal insulation. The concrete wythes are connected to each other by spatial steel truss shear connectors. These panels are widely used as the exterior cladding of steel and concrete structural residential houses due to their economical advantages, superior thermal and structural efficiency. Four full-scale sandwich composite panels were cast and tested under distributed loading. Test results showed that the failure modes and crack patterns of concrete composite panels acting as slab elements were very similar to those of solid slabs, especially when the two concrete wythes act in a fully composite manner. The ultimate flexural strengths were found to be affected by the concrete wythe thickness, ratio of reinforcement of concrete wythe and holes located in composite panels. The finite element analysis (FEA) was used to calculate the crack loads of the panels. The results of finite element analysis (FEA) were compared to experimental data. Comparison indicated that the FEA closely estimate the crack loads of concrete sandwich composite panels.