Mário Garrido

GFRP sandwich panels with PU foam and PP honeycomb cores for civil engineering structural applications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present experimental investigations on the structural behaviour of composite sandwich panels for civil engineering applications. The performance of two different core materials – rigid plastic polyurethane (PU) foam and polypropylene (PP) honeycomb – combined with glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) skins, and the effect of using GFRP ribs along the longitudinal edges of the panels were investigated.Design/methodology/approach – The experimental campaign first included flatwise tensile tests on the GFRP skins; edgewise and flatwise compressive tests; flatwise tensile tests on small‐scale sandwich specimens; and shear tests on the core materials. Subsequently, flexural static and dynamic tests were carried out in full‐scale sandwich panels (2.50×0.50×0.10 m3) in order to evaluate their service and failure behaviour. Linear elastic analytical and numerical models of the tested sandwich panels were developed in order to confirm the effects of varying the core mater...

Creep behaviour of sandwich panels with rigid polyurethane foam core and glass-fibre reinforced polymer faces: Experimental tests and analytical modelling

This paper presents experimental and analytical investigations about the creep behaviour of sandwich panels comprising glass-fibre reinforced polymer faces and rigid polyurethane foam core for civil engineering applications. A full-scale sandwich panel was tested in bending for a period of 3600 h, in a simply supported configuration, subjected to a uniformly distributed load corresponding to 20% of the panel’s flexural strength. Additionally, specimens of polyurethane foam core were tested in shear for a period of 1200 h, for three different load levels corresponding to 10%, 20% and 30% of the foam’s shear strength. Experimental results were fitted using Findley’s power law formulation. Creep coefficients, shear modulus reduction factors and time-dependent shear moduli were obtained for the polyurethane foam in shear. A composed creep model is proposed to simulate the sandwich panel’s long-term creep deformations by considering the individual viscoelastic contributions from (1) the core material in shear and (2) the glass-fibre reinforced polymer faces in tension/compression. The composed creep model predictions adequately reproduced the full-scale panel’s experimental results. In addition, a good agreement was found between the composed creep model predictions and the extrapolation of the power law fitting obtained from the full-scale panel test, for a 50-year period.

Creep of Sandwich Panels with Longitudinal Reinforcement Ribs for Civil Engineering Applications: Experiments and Composite Creep Modeling

AbstractComposite sandwich panels with reinforcement ribs or webs are being increasingly considered for structural applications in civil engineering. Such panels are prone to creep when subjected to significant permanent loads and therefore the effects of this phenomenon must be duly accounted for in their design. Data regarding the viscoelasticity of sandwich panels and their constituent materials is still scarce and often cannot be directly used for creep predictions in design practice. To address this issue, this paper presents the experimental assessment and the analytical modeling of the viscoelastic response of two types of sandwich panels, with and without reinforcement ribs. Panels comprising glass fiber–reinforced polymer (GFRP) faces, cores of polyurethane (PU) foam, and longitudinal GFRP ribs are considered. The ribs increased the flexural strength and stiffness of the panels by a factor of two, while providing a threefold reduction in their creep compliance. A composite creep modeling (CCM) ap...

Elastic and viscoelastic behaviour of sandwich panels with glass-fibre reinforced polymer faces and polyethylene terephthalate foam core

This paper presents experimental and analytical investigations about the elastic and viscoelastic (creep) behaviour of sandwich panels made of glass-fibre reinforced polymer faces and a polyethylene terephthalate foam core, produced by vacuum infusion for civil engineering structural applications. First, the elastic response of the panels’ constituent materials (glass-fibre reinforced polymer and polyethylene terephthalate) in tension, compression and shear was experimentally assessed; shear tests on the foam were carried out using a novel test method, the diagonal tension shear test. The creep behaviour in shear of the polyethylene terephthalate foam was evaluated for different load levels. The effective flexural properties of the full-scale sandwich panels as well as their flexural behaviour up to failure were experimentally assessed. Flexural creep and subsequent recovery experiments were also conducted for different load levels, to characterise the viscoelastic behaviour of the full-scale sandwich panels. Creep deformations of the polyethylene terephthalate foam and of the sandwich panels were found to be significantly lower than those corresponding to polyurethane foam and balsa wood reported in the literature; unrecoverable viscoelastic deformations were observed in the full-scale panels. In the analytical study, the creep response of the panels was modelled using Findley’s power law and the composite creep modelling approach. The composite creep modelling predictions were reasonably accurate and allowed assessing the relative contributions of bending and shear deformations to the total sandwich panel creep deflections.

Flexural Creep Behavior of Full-Scale Laminated Glass Panels

AbstractThis paper presents experimental and analytical investigations on the creep response of full-scale laminated glass panels. The experimental study comprised relatively long-term (350-h) flex...