Safety and reliability experimental study and finite element analysis on RPC footwalk decks

A new kind of concrete, reactive powder concrete (RPC) was developed by BOUYGUES Company in 1993, in France. RPC has ultra-high strength, high ductility and low permeability based on cement composite. In this paper, two types of RPC footwalk. decks (width of Series-A is 240mm and 390mm of Series-B) without conventional steel bars are designed and the safety and reliability of the decks are estimated. Experiment for a total 13 RPC footwalk decks are carried out. According to the analysis of the experimental results, the average safety coefficient of Series-A is 2.14 and that of Series-B is 2.23. Meanwhile, the average ductility coefficient of deflection of Series-A is 2.96 and that of Series-B is 4.14. The experimental results show that the safety and reliability performance of RPC footwalk decks can satisfy the requirements of the engineering. Furthermore, there is enough safety margin for footwalk decks. A three-dimensional finite element analysis (FEA) is also described. The results of FEA are compared with that of experiments. The crack load error between FEA and experiment for Series-A is 3.2% and that for Series-B is 3.3%; the error of ultimate load between FEA and experiment of Series-A is 4.3% and that of Series-B is 2.7%. The error can satisfy the safety requirements of the engineering and it is confirmed that the FEA could predict the crack load, the deflection and the ultimate load of RPC footwalk decks.