Exterior Wood-Concrete Slabs, Experimentation and Modeling of Mechanical Behavior. Part 1.

Structural elements of composite materials are widely used as them allow conceiving stronger as well as economic structures. In the case of wood-concrete composite slabs, the high compressive strength of concrete, together with the great performance and behavior of wood under traction, allows to obtain a resistance, weight and stiffness effective structure; features widely proven in indoor environments. The objective of this research is to analyze wood-concrete slabs behavior under outdoor environmental conditions in order to study its usage in walkways. Experimental tests were performed in two composite slabs, which were subjected to diverse loading configurations for 1250 days in outdoor environment. According to the results, was determined that the real moisture is greater than the theoretical one, which promotes the decay of wood, nevertheless, this variation did not produce a significant change in the overall mechanical characteristics of composite slabs.