Flexural Studies on Profile Sheet-Embedded Steel Concrete Composite Sandwich Panels: Part I—Experimental Research

The use of shear connectors in a composite system tends to impart heterogeneity and needs an expert workmanship as well as special equipment for fabrication. In order to avoid such necessities, the present study is focused on developing steel concrete composite sandwich panels without use of any shear connectors by embedding flanges of the profile sheet in the concrete. Two configurations, (i) P1, where both the skins are a composite with flanges of profile sheet embedded in self-compacting concrete and (ii) P2, where the top skin alone is a composite with flanges of profile sheet embedded in self-compacting concrete, are studied experimentally under four-point bending and are compared with an Reinforced cement concrete (RCC) slab of same dimension. In both the configurations, the webs of the profile sheet act as core in providing shear stability to the panel. The configurations P1 and P2 have 38% and 22% weight of an RCC slab and exhibited 77% and 60% strength of the RCC slab respectively. Apart from good strength-to-weight ratio, the configurations P1 and P2 exhibited better ductility, stiffness and flexural rigidity posing to be a better alternative.