Textile reinforced concrete sandwich panels: Bending tests and numerical analyses

In an ongoing study the mechanical behavior of Textile Reinforced Concrete (TRC) sandwich panels under quasi-static and dynamic loading is being investigated. Experimental data from bending tests are compared with different numerical models. In a parametric study the influence of span, foam density and percentage of reinforcement in the TRC-layers are investigated. Results of the static tests indicate that the stiffness of the samples depends mainly on the core density and thus the shear stiffness, while an increase of TRC reinforcement enhances deflection capacity. To numerically model the behavior of sandwich elements, 'classical' sandwich theory calculation models were used. Furthermore two software products (ANSYS and 'nmk', an FEA-system developed by Haussler-Combe et al.) were employed. The test results are being compared with calculation models based on beam-theory, with FEA models based on linear-elastic, anisotropic and multilinear elastic material models.