STR-909: FLEXURAL BEHAVIOUR OF HIGHLY COMPOSITE NONLOADBEARING PRECAST CONCRETE SANDWICH PANELS Nabi

Precast Concrete Sandwich Panels (PCSP) are proposed as an enclosure of modern net-zero energy buildings as they provide high thermal insulation and efficient protection against moisture ingress. A new PCSP system has recently been developed that consists of two layers of insulation – a 51 mm Polystyrene foam panel and a grooved 25.4 mm Polystyrene board – sandwiched between two reinforced concrete layers tied together by novel Z-Shape Steel Plate Connectors (ZSPC). Some of these panels are enclosed at the top and bottom with concrete beams, commonly known as end-beams. The out-of-plane behaviour of PCSP is typically described as: fully composite, partially-composite, or non-composite; depending on the shear strength and stiffness of the interlayer connectors. To investigate the effect of ZSPC and end-beams on the out-of-plane flexural behaviour of the PCSP, six full-size panels having length, width, and thickness of 3.65 m x 1.22 m x 0.23 m, respectively, were constructed and subjected to a four-point flexural loading. The measured moment-curvature responses for all six panels were compared to theoretical non-composite and fully-composite moment-curvature relationships. Test results revealed that PCSP with ZSPC can achieve 60% to 100% of the theoretical out-of-plane flexural stiffness of a fully-composite panel. Increasing the shear strength of ZSPC improved the out-of-plane bending moment of PCSP corresponding to the design maximum deflection limit. Adding end-beams to PCSP with even small-size ZSPC improved the out-of-plane bending moment of the panel corresponding to the design deflection limit compared to that of the theoretical fully-composite panel.