Ultimate strength of precast concrete sandwich panel with opening under axial load

Abstract

A precast sandwich panel which is being developed as a building system consists of a single layer of insulation sandwiched between two layers of reinforced concrete. At present, an equation to predict the ultimate strength of precast concrete sandwich wall panel with opening, to the best of authors’ knowledge, is not available. This paper reports a research effort to determine the suitability of the load equations developed by earlier researchers for thin reinforced concrete solid wall with opening when used to estimate the ultimate load of precast concrete sandwich wall panel with opening. Nine sandwich panels with different window and door opening combination were prepared and tested under uniformly distributed load. The load was applied and increased in stages till failure. At each stage of the load, deflection gauges and strain gauges reading were recorded. The development of cracks was also monitored. The experimental ultimate loads of precast concrete sandwich wall panels with opening tested in the laboratory were compared with and found close to the theoretical values derived from the equation proposed by Saheb and Desayi for ordinary precast concrete wall panels with opening.