Structural behaviour of composite sandwich panels with plain and fibre-reinforced foamed concrete cores and corrugated steel faces

This paper studies the four-point bending response and failure mechanisms of sandwich panels with corrugated steel faces and either plain or fibre-reinforced foamed concrete core. Mechanical properties of both plain and polyvinyl alcohol fibre-reinforced foamed concrete were obtained, which are needed for the design of sandwich panel and numerical modelling. It is found that the fibre-reinforcement largely enhances the mechanical behaviour of foamed concrete and composite sandwich panels. Finite element code Abaqus/Standard was employed to investigate the influence of face/core bonding and fastening on the four-point bending response of the sandwich panels. It was found that face/core bonding plays a crucial role in the structural performance while the influence of fastening is negligible. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved