In-plane shear behaviour of prefabricated modular wall system assembled of fibre reinforced polymer composites

Abstract

Fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composites could be an alternative of traditional materials for modular construction due to their superior strength to weight ratio, corrosion resistance and immunity from biological degradation. This paper investigates the in-plane shearing behaviour of full-scale modular wall system made from all glass FRP (GFRP) rectangular hollow section (RHS) frames and GFRP sheathing. Monotonic in-plane shear load was applied to understand the effect of important parameters such as sheathing height offset from bottom of wall panel, wall opening, customised angle brackets for additional shear resistance, and comparison between single and double frame wall system. The results show that the wall panel with 10 mm sheathing offset from bottom deformed under shear and avoided high compression stress with significant higher loading capacity than panel with full sheathing. The stiffness of wall panel with opening can be estimated from the wall opening ratio of opening to total wall area. Furthermore, the installation of customised angle brackets can improve the loading capacity and stiffness of the wall panel. Finally, high height-to-width panel aspect ratio increased the loading capacity but reduced the overall panel stiffness in both single and double wall panels. Overall, this study presented that the structural parameters alter the ultimate failure modes which increased the overall loading capacity and impacted the panel stiffness.