Experimental and Numerical Investigation on the Behaviour of Precast Concrete Sandwich Panels with Different Shear Connectors

This paper presents the results of experimental and numerical investigations on precast concrete sandwich panels (PCSPs) as one-way slab tested under flexural load. These panels consist of three layers: an ordinary reinforced concrete layer as the upper layer, a thick lightweight concrete layer as the core, and a lightweight concrete and tension-resistant reinforced ordinary concrete layer as the bottom layer. The common method to join the layers together against the inter layer shear force is carid out by means of truss shear connectors. As a novel method an egg-shaped shear connector were proposed and tested in this research. The behavior of four PCSPs were studied under four-point displacement control monotonic test. The sandwich panels with egg-shaped shear connectors exhibited higher ductility and toughness under flexural loading than those with truss-shaped shear connector. In addition, the sandwich panels with two concrete layers had a smaller linear region stiffness than those with three concrete layers. Furthermore, finite element (FE) models were developed in the ABAQUS to investigate the effects of orientation of shear connectors. Eventually, analytical computation was performed to obtain the ultimate flexural capacity of the panels and were compared with the results of experimental and FE models. The results showed a significant degree of accuracy. Therefore, the PCSP slab can serve as an alternative to the normal concrete slab system in buildings.