Numerical study on through thickness shear capacity of insulated sandwich panels

Abstract

In the world with ever decreasing natural resources and ever increasing need for structures along with global warming compel us to go for a less consuming and more environment friendly approach one of such is wall panel construction using precast sandwich panels. Precast concrete sandwich panels (PCSP) are as name suggests a type of precast wall panels with an insulated core sandwiched between two wire mesh reinforced concrete wythes. The core can be of any insulated material, in this study the core material used is Expanded Polystyrene (EPS). These panels can be used as both wall panels and roof panels. The two wythes are associated by the shear connectors through the EPS centre for transference shear forces (hence called as through-thickness shear) between the wythes and accomplishing composite activity in the panels. The shear connector that is considered for this study is a discreet truss shaped shear connector that are proven to be effective by previous experimental studies. Though various experimental studies are conducted in those panels the numerical study in this is scanty. In this paper the numerical study is conducted for the through thickness shear capacity of the sandwich panels using ABAQUS-CAE software (Finite Element Analysis software). The parameters varied in this numerical study include the effect of absence of EPS core and thickness of the EPS core. From the numerical model the stress strain relationship along with the load deflection curves are plotted and the results are discussed. The results from the numerical studies are similar to that of the experimental studies and are compared.