Structural behaviour of bamboo-reinforced foamed concrete slab containing polyvinyl wastes (PW) as partial replacement of fine aggregate

This paper reports the findings of experimental study to investigate the structural behaviour of bamboo-reinforced foamed concrete slab with polyvinyl waste as partial replacement of fine aggregates. The structural properties studied were: compressive strength, density, crack development pattern and propagation, failure pattern, load-deflection characteristics and the ultimate moment. Compressive strength and the density tests were also conducted using 150 × 150 × 150 cube specimens. The flexural behaviour was investigated by using 1300 × 500 × 100 mm slab specimens. The results showed that: (i) partial replacement of sand with polyvinyl waste (PW) improved the compressive strength of the foamed aerated concrete specimens, (ii) that slab specimens with polyvinyl waste as partial replacement sand exhibited shear bending failure, (iii) all the slab specimens with polyvinyl waste as partial replacement sand recorded lower values of deflection for the same loading, as the level of sand replacement with polyvinyl wastes increased, and (iv) increase in the amount of sand replaced with polyvinyl wastes resulted in improved bending performance of the slab specimens.