Testing of Precast Lightweight Foamed Concrete Sandwich Panel with Single and Double Symmetrical Shear Truss Connectors under Eccentric Loading

Abstract

This paper reports the structural behavior of precast lightweight foamed concrete sandwich panel, PLFP, subjected to eccentric loading. An experiment was conducted to investigate the structural performance of PLFP under this load. Two PLFP panels, PE-1 and PE-2 were cast with 2000 mm in heights, 750 mm in width and 100 mm in thickness. The thickness of the wall is actually a combination of three layers. Skin layers were cast from lightweight foamed concrete while the core layer is made of polystyrene. The skin layers were connected to each other by 9 mm steel shear truss connector which were embedded through the layers. Panel PE-1 was strengthened with single diagonal shear truss connectors made of 6 mm steel rebar while panel PE-2 was strengthened with symmetrical diagonal shear truss connectors of similar steel diameter. Both panels were tested under eccentric load till failure. The results showed that panel with symmetrical double truss connectors, PE-2, is able to sustain higher load compared to panel with single shear truss connector. The load-deflection profiles indicate that both panels achieved certain degree of composite action especially during the later stage of loading where the wythes tend to move in the same direction until they reached failure. The load-strain curves for both panels highlight the inconsistent distribution of surface strain along the height of panels. The overall trend of the strain curves show that they are under compression.