Experimental study on Glass Fibre Reinforced Gypsum-Reinforced concrete floor slab systems

Glass Fibre Reinforced Gypsum (GFRG) panels, with the cavities filled with reinforced concrete (RC), are being used as load-bearing walls in Australia, India and other Asian countries. The same GFRG panels can be placed horizontally for use as floor and roof slabs, with every third cavity filled with RC and provided with a screed concrete topping. Such GFRG-RC composite slabs are being increasingly used in India, with the structural design done conservatively (as RC ribbed one-way slabs), ignoring the contribution of GFRG and possible two-way action. This paper reports experimental and theoretical studies carried out on GFRG-RC slab specimens, 3 m × 3 m in plan and 174 mm thick, to explore the contribution of GFRG to flexural strength and stiffness. It is established that the contribution is quite significant, and this can be taken advantage of in the structural design. Further, it is shown that provision of joints in the GFRG does not adversely affect the performance of the composite slab.