Analysis and minimum cost design of concrete sandwich panels under out-of-plane loading

This paper aims to provide a minimum cost design procedure addressed to structural precast concrete sandwich panels (PCSP) made of high-performance concrete (HPC) faces and a pumice aggregate concrete (PAC) core, occasionally combined with a layer of thermal insulating material. Special consideration has been given to the quantification of cost parameters related to both concrete types. The elements' ultimate limit state is expressed by strength-based formulas, residing with the format of Eurocode 2, and accounts for failure modes associated with monotonic out-of-plane loading, such as flexure, shear and local buckling of the compression face. The optimisation problem is solved using a computer program especially developed by the authors within the Matlab® computing environment. The proposed optimisation procedure results into the derivation of basic design recommendations, regarding the materials' strength and member's geometrical parametres, that fulfil the objective of minimum (initial) cost of out-of-plane loaded PCSP.