IN-PLANE BEHAVIOR OF GLASS FIBER REINFORCED POLYMER (GFRP) SANDWICH PANELS FOR BUILDING APPLICATIONS

摘要

This paper presents the details of an experimental research program that was conducted to evaluate the in-plane characteristics of 3-D glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) panels for structural applications. The first phase of the study focused on developing effective tension connections between the GFRP panels and steel structures. The results indicate that a proposed 'enhanced bolted' connection configuration could be a promising alternative to either purely bolted or purely bonded connections. In the second phase, the behavior of the panels was evaluated under in-plane, biaxial loading conditions. The testing indicated that increasing the out-of-plane flexural stiffness of the panels changed the failure mode from a shear compression dominated mode ,to a shear tension dominated mode. The testing also indicated that a non-contact, digital image correlation-based (DIC) measurement system could be used to provide relevant full-field data to assess the panel performance. The research findings suggest that composite sandwich panels are a promising alternative to conventional construction systems for structural applications.