الفهرس 
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Abstract
This research is an experimental study in the flexural behavior
of self-compacting light weight concrete (LWC) slabs. Seven medium
scale slabs were statically tested to failure under a central load. The
concrete type, flexural reinforcement ratio, slab’s thickness and statical
system were the test parameters.
Key results showed that the use of LWC in slabs resulted in
most pronounced post-cracking structural degradations, including
reduced stiffness until failure at 12.5 and 38 % reduced capacity and
deformability, respectively, relative to the normal density concrete
(NDC) reference slab. The 2.7 failure to cracking loads’ ratio for the
LWC slab violating the minimum reinforcement of the Egyptian code
also reflected the possibility of reducing this limit in LWC slabs.
The LWC slab’s degradations were similarly overcompensated
through either 32.6 or 25 % increased reinforcement ratio or thickness,
respectively, where 35.7 % increased capacity was achieved, but at the
price of up to 70.8 % further deformability reductions. Much lower
increases might therefore result in a similar performance -but less
ductile- LWC slab relative to the NDC one; hence, limiting the
feasibility of LWC slabs to strength governed applications, where the
dead loads’ reductions and benefits would overcome the extra cost of
LWC production.
Finally, the experimental capacities of the slabs were compared
to the ACI 318-2008, BS 8110 – 1997 and the ECP 203 – 2007 code
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equations for flexural capacity predictions .The results is that all codes
are very similar to each other as they are conservative for all slabs
except for slabs with higher thickness In addition, less conservative
prediction are also shown for LWC slabs compared to NDC slab. The
previous gives a preliminary indication that, the influence of the depth
and concrete grade parameters should be reduced in the codes equations
when dealing with LWC slabs.
To fulfill the previously mentioned objectives, this research was
divided into the following chapters:
Chapter (1) : (Introduction)
Is an introduction to this research discussing the importance, the
scope and objectives of the research program.
Chapter (2) : (Literature Review)
Presents a historical background on both lightweight and selfcompacting
concrete as well as the definition of LWC and the
mechanism of achieving SCC. The chapter further presents a
review of the flexural capacity of reinforced concrete slabs.
Chapter (3) : (Experimental Work)
Contains the experimental test program, the properties of the
material used, details of the specimens, the description of the
experimental set up, measured devices and test procedure.
Chapter (4) : (Test Results and Discussions)
This chapter presents the test results of the experiments on slabs
including crack and ultimate loads, modes of failure, defections
as well as concrete and steel strains.
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Chapter (5) : (Codes Predication)
This Chapter discusses the approaches adopted by three wellknown
international building codes for flexural capacity
predictions of ACI 318-08 [ACI 2008], BS 8110 – 1997 and the
ECP 203 – 2007 where used in the above mentioned predictions.
Chapter (6) : (Summary and Conclusions)
Presents a brief summary of the thesis and the suggested
conclusions. For future studies, several recommendations are
also introduced.