Experimental Study for Structural Behaviour of Precast Lightweight Panel (PLP) Under Flexural Load
Precast lightweight concrete slab is first fabricated in workshop or industrial before construction and then transported to site and installed by skilled labour. It can reduce construction time by minimizing user delay and time for cast-in-situ to increase workability and efficiency. is environmental friendly and helps in resource reduction. Although the foamed concrete has low compressive strength compared to normal weight concrete but it has excellent thermal insulation and sound absorption. It is environmental friendly and helps in resource reduction. To determine the material properties of foamed concrete, nine cubes and six cylindrical specimens were fabricated and the results were recorded. In this study, structural behaviour of precast lightweight panel (PLP) with dry density of 1800 kg/m3 was tested under flexural load. The results were recorded and analysed in terms of ultimate load, crack pattern, load-deflection profiles and strain distribution. Linear Voltage Displacement Transducers (LVDT) and strain gauges were used to determine the deflection and strain distribution of PLP. The theoretical and experimental ultimate load of PLP was analysed and recorded to be 70 and 62 kN respectively, having a difference of 12.9%. Based on the results, it can be observed that PLP can resist the adequate loading. Thus, it can be used in precast industry for construction purposes.
Numerical analysis and experimental validation of reinforced foamed concrete beam containing partial cement replacement
Abstract Agro-industrial wastes incorporating supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) regarded as sustainable efforts to reduce environmental impact generated by agricultural residual byproduct as well as the production of cement. Various waste materials are being utilized in concrete throughout the world as SCMs, experimental work to understand the performance of such concrete consumes time as well as cost. Therefore, three dimensional non-linear simulation is a key for predicting correctly the performance of concrete comprising waste materials in various designation mixture. This experimental work was conducted to undergo three-dimensional non-linear simulation, using concrete damage plasticity failure in ABAQUS/CAE software, of reinforced foamed concrete beam incorporating 20% Palm Oil Fuel Ash and 5% and 10% Eggshell Powder as partial cement replacement. The simulated results indicated that the proposed finite element modelling was successful in predicting accurately the damage behavior of foamed concrete.
Application design of a sun-tracking system
As a very good renewable energy, solar energy gets a lot of countries' concerns. How to improve the efficiency of solar panel is now a hot topic and sun tracking is one of the solutions. In this paper, a servo tracking system using dSPACE DS1104 R&D controller board is designed to improve solar collection efficiency. It combines electro-optical tracking and sun trajectory tracking, and can keep solar panels perpendicular to the sun during daylight hours. In order to reduce the amount of computation, a T-S fuzzy system based sun trajectory tracking is proposed. Because of the seamless connection between dSPACE and MATLAB/Simulink, the development cycle time is short. Experimental results show that the system can track the sun precisely and has higher efficiency.