Flexural Behaviour of Lightweight Concrete Beams and Slabs Reinforced with GFRP Gratings

The weight of concrete is considered the heaviest component of load applied onto structures. In concrete structures, the greatest amount of energy usage is consumed due to cooling and heating systems. To reduce the self-weight and thermal conductivity of concrete, lightweight aggregates such as expanded perlite and expanded vermiculite have been used as a replacement to normal weight aggregates in concrete. The addition of expanded perlite or expanded vermiculite has resulted in lightweight concrete with a low compressive strength (less than 20 MPa) at 28 days. To overcome this issue, a total of eighteen trial mixes of concrete were conducted in this study as a first preliminary investigation by replacing normal weight aggregates in concrete with expanded perlite or expanded vermiculite at different percentages. The results showed that two optimum mixes were obtained, one mix containing expanded perlite (perlite concrete) and the other mix containing expanded vermiculite (vermiculite concrete). The compressive strengths of perlite concrete and vermiculite concrete were 36 MPa and 32 MPa, respectively at 28 days. The corresponding bulk density and thermal conductivity of the perlite concrete and vermiculite concrete were less than the normal weight concrete (reference concrete)...