Experimental And Numerical Studies On EPS Lightweight Concrete

Owing to excellent performance, such as low density, water resistance, thermal insulation, eclectic insulation and seismic resistance, expanded polystyrene (EPS) has been widely used in modern society. By totally or partially replacing coarse and fine aggregates with EPS particles, EPS concrete with varying densities and strengths could be made. Due to its superior properties of thermal insulation, sound isolation, damping and lightweight, EPS concrete has drawn considerable attention from civil engineers. Therefore, researching on this new material do good to pollution reduction, as well as economics and society.In this thesis, some studies on EPS concrete are conducted through experiments and numerical simulations. The main contents are as follows:(1) Based on the classic packing theory, a series of computer programs are compiled to compare and analyze the different packing models. The EPS concrete mix is designed based on the comparison results.(2) The cubic compressive strength, axial compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength and shrinkage of the EPS concrete are tested. The curve fitting relationships between EPS particle volume percentage and its compressive strength are given. The stress-strain curves of EPS concrete with different EPS volume percentage are also obtained and analyzed. (3) The ultrasonic velocities in EPS concrete with different EPS volume percentages are tested and compared to the existing formulas of two-phased media. The failure process of EPS concrete is investigated through analyzing the changes of the ultrasonic velocity during the compression testing.(4) Using Monte Carlo stochastic simulation method and Weibull random distribution theory, a random model of EPS concrete particle generation method is proposed. By means of applying APDL and MATLAB computer languages to simulate the stochastic particle model and random mechanical parameters model of the EPS concrete, the failure process of the EPS concrete is analyzed using the double broken line damage constitutive relation.The research work presented in this thesis is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China with the granted number 50708059.