Flexural behavior and sustainable analysis of polymer bubbuled reinforced concrete slabs

This work presents the flexural capacities and sustainable analysis of reinforced concrete (RC) two way hollow slabs with polymer sphere voids, also known as polymer bubbled RC slab system. A polymer bubbled RC slab has two-dimensional arrangement of voids included to reduce the self-weight. The strength and behavior of bubbled RC slabs with polymer spheres voids is investigated experimentally. Eleven RC square slabs of 1000mm x 1000mm dimensions have been tested to obtain the flexural behavior. Variables of the experimental work are: diameter of polymer spheres, thickness of reinforced concrete slabs, and percentage of Metakaolin (cement replacement). It has been found that bubbled RC slab, (with ratio of bubble diameter B to slab thickness H, B/H=0.51 to 0.80), has about (90 to 100%) of the ultimate load capacity of a similar reference solid slab (which has the same slab thickness). Also, bubbled slabs consume about (70 to 75%) of the concrete needed for the similar solid slab. An increase in the deflection at 0.7P