Experimental Study on Insulated Foam-Timber Sandwich Panels as Basement Walls in Residential Construction

摘要

A Structural Insulated Panel (SIP) is a panel composed of expanded polystyrene (EPS) insulation (EPS) board laminated between two oriented-strand boards (OSB). They can be used for residential and commercial building applications to provides builders and homeowners with energy efficient, structurally superior, environmentally friendly and easy to install building system. The structural adequacy of the developed sandwich panel wall system needs to be investigated experimentally on full-size to stand on the effectiveness of the foam core in providing composite action enough to meet both the strength and serviceability requirements per Canadian code for timber design. Strength includes the compressive resistance of the wall, while serviceability include limiting shortening under operating conditions, impact performance of the foam core interface with the OSBs, creep performance under sustained loading and the performance under low temperature. A research program at Ryerson University has recently started with the aim to contribute to the efficient design of SIP walls by developing experimentally calibrated models capable of predicting accurately their response when subjected to gravity loads as well as combined gravity and lateral loads. This paper summarizes the test program and test results of such fabricated walls for applications as basement walls in houses, replacing the traditionally-used plain concrete walls.