Structural Behavior of Composite Reinforced Concrete One-Way Slabs Voided with Plastic Bubbles

The weight of a slab usually accounts for the highest percentage of the total weight and consumes more time for its construction. Therefore, many attempts have been conducted to reduce the dead weight of the slabs and the construction time. Most of the studies focus on the traditional reinforced concrete slabs though there are no studies conducted on reducing self-weight of composite slabs with plastic bubbles. In this study, a developed type of one-way composite slab in which the uses of recycled plastic bubbles has been proposed in order to reduce the self-weight of the slab, CO₂ emissions, and embodied energy. Nine specimens of one-way composite bubbled slabs with the dimensions (1,850 mm × 500 mm × 110 mm) have been evaluated with different parameters including the geometry of the profile steel sheet (Trapezoidal shape, triangle shape, and T-shape). The presence or absence of plastic bubbles, and diameters of plastic balls range between 70 mm and 86 mm. The results showed that the composite bubbled slabs with diameter 70 mm give ultimate load close to composite slabs without bubbles except the composite bubbled slabs with trapezoidal shape showed a decrease in total load by 10.9%. Also, the results showed that the increased diameter of bubbles from 70 mm to 86 mm leads to an increment in the ultimate load capacity of composite slabs with trapezoidal shape and triangle shape by 10.2% and 18.1%, respectively. Whereas, the composite bubbled slab with T-shape decreased in ultimate load capacity by 6.2%. Finally, the composite bubbles slabs reduced weight by about 6.75% to 14% and decreased CO₂ emissions up to 13.8%.