Anil Garhwal, Shruti Sharma, Danie Roy A B,

Performance of Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) sandwiched concrete panels subjected to

accelerated corrosion,
Structures,
Volume 43,
2022,
Pages 1057-1072,
ISSN 2352-0124,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.istruc.2022.07.020.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352012422005811)
Abstract: Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) Sandwiched Concrete Panel is economical and
light weight construction material which functions as load bearing as well as
insulating member. EPS sandwiched concrete panels are advantageous in rapid
construction of houses as well as saving of materials. This experimental study
attempts to assess the out-of-plane behavior (four-point flexural bending) and
performance of EPS sandwiched concrete panels subjected to varying degrees of
corrosion using impressed current corrosion technique. EPS panels with dimensions
of 1000 × 600 × 130 mm (Length × Width × Thickness) with welded wire mesh of size
50 × 50 mm as wythe reinforcement were corroded to different levels and tested
under a monotonically increasing load. The mode of failure and behavior of
corrosion damaged EPS sandwiched concrete panels has been investigated in terms of
resultant strength, stiffness, ductility and composite action. The experimental
study shows a decrease of 6.98%, 13.93%, 20.62%, and 60.45% in the ultimate
flexural load carrying capacity after exposure to 5, 10, 15, and 20 days of
accelerated corrosion, respectively. The ductility of panels evaluated using
Ductility Factor (DF) shows a decrease up to 85.01 % in highly corroded EPS panel.
Along with destructive flexural testing, non-destructive technique of Acoustic
Emission (AE) monitoring was also attempted during flexural testing using surface
mounted AE sensors to correlate to the performance of corroded EPS panels. AE
parameters of cumulative AE hits and their amplitudes could easily relate to the
extent of damage experienced with increasing levels of corrosion.