Experimental study and performance analysis of the flexural strength of reinforced ice slabs

In recent years, interest in the prefabricated ice rink for international competition has increased. The ice sheet, whose support is extruded polystyrene foam board, is prone to bending failure. To maintain the advantage of recycling prefabricated ice rinks, the method of reinforcing ice slabs with welded steel mesh (SRI) was proposed. However, the flexural properties of SRI remain unclear. Therefore, three-point bending tests, theoretical derivation, and finite element analysis were conducted in this study to better understand SRI. First, the three-point bending tests with 17 specimens were performed considering the effects of reinforcement ratio (0%∼0.812%). The results showed that the SRI's cracking load capacity and ultimate load capacity improved significantly with 1.84 and 4.49 times higher than the plain ice slab at most. Additionally, reinforcement can reduce the stiffness drop caused by cracking, which can be increased to 0.913 at most. Then, the calculation formula of the cracking load, which is a segmentation function, is derived based plane section assumption and gets good agreement with experimental results. At the same time, the calculation formula of the ultimate load is derived, although the calculation result is conservative, it can reflect the trend of the ultimate load with the variation of reinforcement ratio. Finally, finite element simulation analysis of three-point bending tests of SRI were conducted, using the brittle cracking model and the Coulomb-Moore plasticity model, respectively. Simulation results show that using both models alone have the limitation of use range. As a result, a B + C combined numerical model (the brittle cracking model is used for the tension zone and the Coulomb-Mohr plasticity model is used for the compressive zone) was proposed, and the simulation results agree well with the cracking load of both experiment and formula. Taken together, the welded steel mesh effectively improves the flexural performance of ice slabs and the findings of this study are beneficial for the design and finite element analysis of SRI in the future.