Axial Performance of Jointed Sandwich Wall Panels

Abstract

Throughout this paper, a new system for connecting composite sandwich wall panels is proposed. The relevant structural components are investigated with the aim of utilizing these panels as insulated wall elements in building applications or prefabricated modular systems. The adopted sandwich wall panels are composed of hand-layup glass fiber–reinforced polymer (GFRP) outer skins and low-density closed polyurethane (PU) foam core. The sandwich wall panels present an overall geometry of 2,880×960×64 mm3. One challenge of the proposed new system that was examined included joining the panels in the longitudinal direction (along their height) and transversally connecting (along their width) to other structural elements, similar to beams at the bottom and top. The structural performance of the sandwich wall panels was experimentally tested and thereafter analytically assessed in two cases: (1) single wall panels; and (2) two jointed wall panels. Outward localized GFRP wrinkling, followed by global buckling was observed as the dominant failure mode in both cases. Further, the capability of the proposed connection system to increase the axial load capacity of the jointed panels was evaluated. The study illustrates that axial capacity of two jointed sandwich wall panels, compared to the single sandwich wall panel, increased substantially from 91 to 152% depending on the failure modes.