Finite Element Modelling of Concrete Sandwich EPS Panels Under Various Loading Conditions

Abstract

Throughout the world with the improvement in the standard of living and growing population need for quality housing is increasing day by day. To fulfil the need for housing and to build infrastructures such as hospitals, schools, colleges, corporate buildings, bridges, roads, etc. The over-exploitation of natural resources such as building materials which act as building blocks in a building is becoming a serious problem. Today the natural resources like sand, clay, aggregates, etc. are depleting at a fast rate to full fill the needs of the present construction industry. Hence research is going on to develop new materials which can replace convention building materials without affecting the structural quality for promoting sustainable construction. One such material is Precast Insulated Concrete Sandwich (PICS) panels for acting as load-bearing walls and slab in building systems. Use of precast insulated concrete sandwich (PICS) panels is cost effective and time-saving. In this context, precast concrete sandwich panels having two wythes separated by a core may serve dual purposes of transferring load and insulating. The objective of this study is to basically describe the various sandwich panels used in construction, their classification, their performance based on previous studies and their applications as load-bearing wall in the building construction. The most commonly used panels are concrete EPS panels which are described in detail in this study. Further, the core material can be replaced with other economic materials like aluminium alloy based corrugated core, a GFRP, CFRP, etc. Use of different types of connectors is discussed in detail based on the previous studies. Some of the limited available research results based on experimental and analytical investigations are discussed. This thesis presents the results of FEM analysis of precast insulated panels sandwich between concrete under flexure, punching, push-off loading, axial and diagonal compression loading. The FEM analysis of the panels is done by Ansys Workbench software by considering nonlinear behavior. This thesis is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the FEM analysis of slab panel for flexure, punching and push- off loading and the second part shows the behavior under axial and diagonal compression of structural load bearing wall panel. At last, the deformation behavior of the panels is highlighted which is validated with the published experimental results of various authors. For the analysis ANSYS static tool is used and the analysis is done implicitly using edge split condition for applying force and boundary conditions.