Deflection assessment of prestressed steel-concrete-steel sandwich panel: experiment and numerical simulation

A steel-concrete-steel sandwich panel with prestressed reinforcement was developed, named prestressed steel-concrete-steel sandwich panel. Nine specimens where the loading mode, top steel plate thickness, spacing of connectors and prestressed reinforcement arrangement were varied were experimentally tested to explore the failure mode, ultimate strength, ductility and deflection of the structure. The results show that prestressing enhanced the ultimate strength and ductility of the structure. Finite element analysis predictions were consistent with test results in terms of crack characteristics, load-displacement curve and ultimate strength. Deflection prediction analysis of the prestressed panels was also developed based on variational theory which provided good agreement with the finite element results.