Experimental Evaluation of Sandwich Panels with Parallel Shear Connectors for Building Applications

The present study focuses on the evaluation of the static and dynamic behavior of cementitious sandwich panels with parallel steel wire shear connectors. The study is divided into two parts: (i) large-scale experimental evaluation of different structural sandwich members subjected to different types of loading regimes, and (ii) analytical procedures to predict the behavior of such panels. However, and due to the lack of experimental data on the behavior of such sandwich panels, the emphasis of this study is on full-scale experimental evaluation. In the analytical part of the study, modified procedures, based on the experimental observations, following the general guidelines of the American Concrete Institute (ACI 318-11) were adopted. Also, the experimental program focused on assessing the out-of-plane flexural behavior of floor/roof sandwich slabs. Both simply supported and two-span continuous large-scale floor/roof slabs, with different boundary conditions and details, were evaluated. The experimental results were compared to the analytical predictions and well agreement between the results was achieved. The study also included several large-scale element experiments that were conducted on walls subjected to axial, shear, eccentric and flexural loadings conditions as well as exterior and interior corner connections. These tests are considered to be a pioneering research work that are not available to-date in published literature. A summary of the test setup, test procedures and experimental results that included quasi-static and cyclic load-displacement (P-δ) and Stress- Strain (σ−ε) curves are presented and discussed herein.The comprehensive experimental program provided much needed information to the structural engineers that lack the knowledge on the service and ultimate performance of this type of sandwich structural elements. For example, the experimental results provided important information on the suitability of the sandwich panels with parallel wire connectors for the use as floors and roof slabs. In addition, the experimental results identified the different failure modes that are not similar to those for solid concrete elements.The simplified analytical procedures that followed, in general, the requirements of ACI 318-11 with justifiable modifications succeeded to provide conservative estimates to the capacity of each structural sandwich element evaluated in this study. Numerical design examples for typical residential buildings that were performed using the proposed analytical procedures are also presented.Conclusions drawn from this pioneering study is summarized and recommendations for future research work is presented in this thesis