Design Efficiency, Characteristics, and Utilization of Reinforced Foamed Concrete: A Review

Foam concrete (FC) serves as an efficient construction material that combines well thermal insulation and structural properties. The studies of material characteristics, including the mechanical, physical, rheological, and functional properties of lightweight concrete, have been conducted rigorously. However, a lack of knowledge on the design efficiency of reinforced FC (RFC) was found in current research trends, compared to reinforced lightweight aggregate concrete. Therefore, this paper presents a review of the performance and adaption in structures for RFC. According to the code specifications, the feasibility investigation was preliminarily determined in structural use through the summary for the mechanical properties of FC of FC’s mechanical properties. For reinforced concrete design, a direct method of reduction factors is introduced to design lightweight aggregate concrete, which is also suggested to be adapted into a lightweight FC design. It was found that flexural shear behavior is a more complex theoretical analysis than flexure. However, a reduction factor of 0.75 was recommended for shear, torsion, and compression; meanwhile, 0.6 for flexural members. Serviceability limit states design should be applied, as the crack was found predominant in RFC design. The deflection controls were recommended as 0.7 by previous research. Research on RFC’s compression members, such as a column or load load-bearing wall, were rarely found. Thus, further study for validating a safe design of RFC applications in construction industries today is highly imperative.