Behavior of One-Way Reinforced Concrete Slabs with Polystyrene Embedded Arched Blocks

This study presents experimental and numerical investigations on seven one-way, reinforced concrete (RC) slabs with a new technique of slab weight reduction using polystyrene-embedded arched blocks (PEABs). All had the same dimensions, steel reinforcement, compressive strength. One these was solid slab, which taken as control while other six were cast PEABs. The main variables ratio length PEABs to (lp/L) height total depth (hP/H). minimum decrease in ultimate load capacity about 6% 15%. In contrast, maximum 24% 40%. Moreover, mode failure changed from flexure shear failure, especially for those an lP/L equal one. geometric material non-linearity adopted proposed finite element (FE) model simulate Abaqus software. Good agreement obtained between developed FE results.