Structural behavior of hollow-core reinforced self-compacting concrete beams

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents an experimental investigation on the structural performance of hollow-core reinforced self-compacting concrete beams and performs an optimization analysis to select the optimum hollow-core beam section, as well as perform a sustainability analysis. The experimental program includes constructing and testing five beams with different longitudinal hollow-core diameters created by using recycled plastic pipes, as well as a solid beam, used as a reference specimen. The results show that it can reduce the concrete from self-compacting concrete beams with percentages from 5.4 to 14.2 with a decrease in the first crack load from 9.1 to 22.7% and the ultimate strength from 2.3 to 10.5% respectively compared to the reference solid beam. The optimization analysis shows that the beam of 46 mm diameter hollow-core is the optimum selection in the concrete volume reduction of 11.1%, cracking load, and ultimate load reduction of 13.6% and 9.3% respectively among all the other beam specimens. While the sustainability analysis reveals that, using longitudinal voids of diameters from 32 to 52 mm leads to a decrease in the embodied energy with percentages from 5.4 to 14.2% and carbon dioxide emission with percentages from 5.4 to 14.1% respectively. Increasing the longitudinal void diameter makes hollow-core self-compacting concrete beams more ductile and exhibits large deflections before failure occurrences. Article Highlights 1. Tests on hollow-core reinforced self-compacting concrete beams are conducted. 2. Recycled plastic pipes are used to create hollow-core in the beams and to reduce ineffective concrete. 3. Reducing ineffective concrete contributes to sustainability with maintaining a good ratio of beam strength.

Keywords

• Hollow-core
• Sustainability
• Optimization
• Self-compacting concrete
• Concrete elimination